About 7% of the world’s total land area is affected by salt, as is a similar percentage of its arable land (Ghassemi et al., 1995). Salinity is often accompanied by other soil properties, such as sodicity and alkalinity, which exert their own specific effects on plant growth. There are three ways in which salinity stress of crops could be reduced; 1- Farm management practices; 2- Screening; 3- Breeding which will be discussed in the followings:

1.1 Farm management practices

All irrigation waters contain some dissolved salts. Thus, soil salinization may be expected by crop irrigation. Removal of salts from the root zone may be the most effective way to eliminate the effects of salinity. However, it is expensive and requires good drainage system. It is not always possible to carry out this operation; thereby a number of other different ways could be considered such as:

a. Soil Reclamation; in a case Na ions are the major cause of soil salinity, it may be replaced with Ca ions by adding of gypsum (calcium sulfate) to the soil.

b. Reduction of the salt from seed germination zone; Seed germination and seedling establishment are the most sensitive stages to salinity. A number of approaches have been used. 1) Removal of surface soil (Qureshi et al., 2003). 2) Pre-sowing irrigation with good quality water (Goyal et al., 1999). 3) Planting seed on the ridge shoulders rather than on the ridge top of the furrow. 4) Planting in a pre-flooded field with good quality water (Goyal et al., 1999).

c. Reducing soil salinity by adding mulch, organic matter or deep tillage to the soil.