The present investigation was carried out during the two successive growing seasons 2014 and 2015 at Sakha Horticultural Research Station Farm, Kafr EL-Sheikh Governorate, in North Middle Nile Delta, Egypt, to evaluate the impact of three pear rootstocks (Pyurs communis, Pyrus beutilifolia and Pyrus calleryana) on counteracting the adverse effects of heavy clay soil affected with saline alkaline in the North Middle Nile Delta region on growth, leaf water relations and mineral contents of the widespread pear cv. in Egypt namely "Le Conte". The main results can be summarized as follows:
Pear plants budded on P. beutilifolia or P. calleryana rootstock significantly increased most of growth parameters (plant height, stem diameter growth percentage, total shoot lengths, leaf area, and specific leaf weight) and leaf photosynthetic pigments content (chlorophyll A and B). With regard to leaf total water and free water content, plants grown on P. beutilifolia rootstock gave the highest values followed by those budded on P. calleryana in this respect .On the contrary , bound water content and water deficit percentage were increased in plants budded on P. communis. With respect of proline content P. communis rootstock had significantly higher values while P. calleryana recorded lowest values . Pear plants budded on P. calleryana rootstock had the right leaf-N content, while the right leaves in P, Na and Cl content recorded by plants budded on P. communis. However, K percentage was increased in pear leaves which budded on P. beutilifolia a followed by P. calleyana rootstock. These results suggested that, P. beutilifolia may have a salt exclusion mechanism in the root, and this character is maintained even if scion cultivars were budded. Therefore, P. beutilifolia rootstock followed by P. calleryana are a useful rootstocks for pear cultivation under saline alkaline conditions than the P. communis rootstock.