According to the classification of crop tolerance to
salinity, the rice crop is within the sensitive division from 0
to 8 dS m-1
(Maas et al., 1986). The susceptibility of rice to
salinity stress varies with growth stages. Heenan et al.
(1988) and Lutts et al. (1995) reported that rice is extremely
sensitive to salinity during germination, young seedling
and early developmental stages for most commonly used
rice varieties. However, in contrast, Khan et al. (1997)
observed that rice is relatively salt tolerant at germination
and in some cases is not affected significantly up to 16.3
dS m-1 of salinity. In general, rice becomes very sensitive
at the young seedling stage, which impacts the stand
density in salt affected fields (Lutts et al., 1996). It is
necessary to identify the sensitivity and tolerance level of
a variety at early seedling stages for successful crop production
in a saline environment. Therefore, this study was
conducted to identify the salt-tolerance rice variety(s) at
early seedling establishment and to determine their salt
tolerance levels.