The goal was to evaluate the response of pomegranate cultivar transplants “Manfaluty" and “Wonderful" for salinity stress. A pot investigation was conducted during (2016 and 2017) seasons in a glasshouse, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams Univ., Shoubra EL- Kheima, Egypt. Pots were arranged in a randomized complete design with two factors, the first one was pomegranate cultivars which included two cultivars namely (Manfaluty and Wonderful) and the second factor was NaCl levels whereas, transplants were irrigated with five levels of water salinity (0, 20, 40, 60, and 80 mM NaCl). It could be summarized results in some main points:
- Both pomegranate cultivars were moderately resistant to salinity up to 40 Mm NaCl with slight growth reduction.
-More increase in salinity level up to 60 and 80 mM NaCl reduction growth around 50-70% compared with untreated transplants. Generally, “Manfaluty" had a slightly higher reduction in growth than “Wonderful".
-Increasing salinity levels caused a significant reduction in leaf K content otherwise Na was accumulated in the leaves of both ‘pomegranate cultivars.
-Proline leaves content, increased gradually by the increase in salinity levels up to (60 mM NaCl), and the highest significant values of proline content were obtained when combing (60mM NaCl) with “Wonderful".
So it could be concluded that, increasing salinity level more than 40 mM NaCl will inhibit pomegranate growth and make an imbalance of nutrient status in pomegranate transplants with slight differences between the response of two cultivars.