Oats (Avena sativa L.) is a winter cereal forage crop. Oat crops are generally less sensitive to soil acidity and salt stress. Salinity is a global problem for limiting plant growth and agriculture productivity in many areas of the world. An experiment was conducted in perti dishes lined with Whatman filter paper at the room temperature. Salinity tolerance of seven oat varieties (JHO-822, Kent, OL-9, OL-125, UPO-212, UPO-94 and NDO-2) were investigated on the basis of seed germination and seedling growth. Different salinity levels (25, 50, 75 and 100 mM NaCl) were used. Distilled water served as control. The rate of seed germination decreased in all cultivars with increasing levels of salinity from 25 to 100 mM. The analyzed data showed that NDO-2 and UPO-212 were found to be highly salt tolerant and moderately salt tolerant respectively in term of germination %, shoot/root length and dry weight of shoot and root with respect to salinity. Conversely, UPO-94 was sensitive to salinity in terms of the above parameters studied.
