Registration of ‘S‐24’ Spring Wheat with Improved Salt Tolerance

Agricultural productivity is greatly reduced because of salinity stress, particularly in the arid and semiarid regions of the world, including Pakistan, where increasing salinization of previously productive land necessitates the development of salt‐tolerant crop cultivars. Because wheat (Triticum spp.) is a major staple food, development of salt‐tolerant wheat cultivars through screening and breeding techniques seems plausible as tremendous genetic variability exists for salt tolerance in this crop. To improve crop productivity on salt‐affected lands, a salt‐tolerant spring wheat (T. aestivum L.) cultivar S‐24 (Reg. No. CV‐1044; PI 652453) was developed through screening and breeding techniques. S‐24 was derived from screening and selection of an F3 population at 2.4 S m−1 salinity, and it was developed from a cross (‘LU‐26S’/‘Kharchia’) in 1992–1993 at the Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan. S‐24 is salt tolerant, maintaining a high K+/Na+ ratio in plant tissue, and possesses good agronomic characteristics including grain yield and 1000 kernel weight (TKW). S‐24 has dark green color, a semidwarf growth habit, and large‐sized red‐colored grain. It has superior grain yield potential in production fields where high levels of salinity are present, such as the Punjab and Sindh provinces of Pakistan. This salt‐tolerant cultivar is of considerable value for exploitation of salt‐affected soils.