Salinity is an abiotic stress factor and a major challenge that has significant negative effects on wheat production. It is also a source of concern for plant breeders leading them to reach reliable screening criteria for salt tolerance in wheat genotypes. The physiological analysis showed that the three salt-tolerant wheat genotypes viz., Dijla, 2H, and 3H showed the highest rate for the physiological traits i.e., chlorophyll content (38.9, 39.5, and 42.1, respectively), carbohydrates (600.14, 590.6, 560.8: 2H, 3H, and Dijla, respectively), proline acid (24.30, 23.14, and 21.87: Dijla, 3H, and 2H, respectively) under salt stress conditions, except protein percentage (3.8% and 3.3%: Rabia and Ibaa99, respectively) and K+/Na+ ratio (6.3 and 5.9: 2H and Dijla, respectively). The salt-tolerant wheat genotypes 2H, Dijla, and 3H enunciated an increased rate of expression of salt-related genes (TaOPR1 gene and β-actin gene) with values of 6.498, 4.0, and 3.768, respectively compared to two other salinity-sensitive cultivars i.e., Ibaa99 and Rabia under salt stress conditions. The salinity-sensitive cultivars i.e., Ibaa99 and Rabia showed no gene expression and significant difference with the control treatment after being treated with salinity stress conditions.

The breeding material comprising 17 Iraqi wheat cultivars belongs to three different types, i.e., a) salinity-tolerant cultivars (Dajla, Furat, 1H, 2H, 2N, 3H, 3N, and 7H), b) drought-tolerant cultivars (Sham-6 and Orok), and c) local cultivars (Iraq, Iba99, Iba95, Abu Ghraib-3, Adnanin, Tamoze, and Alrashid) underwent qualitative characteristics and genomic analysis studies in 2021-2022, at the Biotechnology Research Center, Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq. Measuring the percentage of protein, wet and dry gluten, and molecular fingerprinting used the randomly amplified polymorphic of DNA (RAPD) technique with six primers, with traits estimation using a dendrogram. The highest percentage of protein (24.5%), wet (52.7%), and dry gluten (27.3%) emerged from the wheat genotype Dajla. However, the recorded lowest percentages of wet (32.52%) and dry gluten (7.62%) appeared in wheat genotype Iba99. The cultivars Aadnania, Abu Ghraib-3, and Tamoze gave the lowest protein content of 9.45, 10.34, and 10.54, respectively. The cluster analysis divided 17 wheat genotypes into two large cluster groups. Amplification of all 365 loci used six primers. Fragments‟ size ranged from 100 bp to 2000 kb. The highest number of bands (73) was amplified with primer Pr-5, while the lowest number (48) was with primer Pr-1.