Salinity is one of the major abiotic stresses that causes yield loss of many crop plants. Triticale (X. Triticosecale Wittmack), is as the most successful man-made cereal, was synthetized to achive a cereal possessing unique grain quality of wheat parent with tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses of rye parent. To investigate physiological and grain quality traits of eighteen triticale lines comprising 9 doubled haploid (DH) lines and 9 their corresponding F 8 lines as well as two bread wheat cultivars ('Roshan' and 'Kavir'), an experiment was conducted using a randomized complete block design with three replications for each of the environmental conditions (non-stress and salt-stress conditions) at the research farm of College of Agriculture, Isfahan University of Technology with the soil of silty clay loam in 2008-2009. Salt-stressed experiment was irrigated by saline water using 175 mM NaCl and EC = 15 ds m -1 from mid-jointing growth stage (Zadoks 43) onward. Results of analysis of variance showed significant differences among the genotypes for all of the studied traits. The results of combined analysis of variance revealed that salt stress significantly influenced all of the studied traits. Under both conditions, orthogonal comparison indicated that triticale lines performed superior than wheat cultivars considering most physiological traits and grain yield while wheat cultivars were superior for grain quality traits. Under both conditions, Kavir wheat cultivar possessed the highest protein contents of 15.20% and 17.93% under non-stress and salt stress conditions, respectively. Under both growth conditions antioxidant activities for ascorbate peroxidase, glutathione reductase and super oxide dismutas were greater in triticale lines than wheat cultivars. Further lipid peroxidation of triticale lines was less than wheat cultivars. Under both conditions, positive and significant correlations were observed between grain yield with area of flag leaf, dry weight of peduncle and relative water content but grain yield had negative and significant correlation coefficients with protein content, sodium dodecyl sulphate sedimentation volume and gluten content. Grain yield had positive and significant correlation with leaf rolling under non-stress conditions. Negative and significant correlation coefficient was observed between proline content produced under salinity stress conditions and grain yield loss indicating a positive role of proline in salinity tolerance. Factor analysis revealed 9 and 10 factors which explained 89.15% and 91.21% of grain variation under non-stress and salt-stress conditions, respectively. Results of stepwise regression for grain yield showed that
