A major limitation to the use of injury or survival
to identify salt-tolerant germplasm arises when the
cause of injury is not known. The injury could be due
to water stress, the Na+ or Cl− accumulating within
the leaf, or to K+ or Ca2+ deficiency (Greenway and
Munns, 1980). Alternatively, leaf death could be due
to accelerated senescence due to osmotic effect of the
salt. This becomes particularly relevant when considering
the reproducibility of the responses in the field.