Three strains of a spore-forming, Gram-positive, motile, rod-shaped and boron-tolerant bacterium were isolated from soil. The strains, designated 10a^T, 11c and 12B, can tolerate 5 % (w/v) NaCl and up to 150 mM boron, but optimal growth was observed without addition of boron or NaCl in Luria–Bertani agar medium. The optimum temperature for growth was 37 °C (range 16–45 °C) and the optimum pH was 7.0–8.0 (range pH 5.5–9.5). A comparative analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence demonstrated that the isolated strains were closely related toBacillus fusiformisDSM 2898^T(97.2 % similarity) andBacillus sphaericusDSM 28^T(96.9 %). DNA–DNA relatedness was greater than 97 % among the isolated strains and 61.1 % withB. fusiformisDSM 2898^Tand 43.2 % withB. sphaericusIAM 13420^T. The phylogenetic and phenotypic analyses and DNA–DNA relatedness indicated that the three strains belong to the same species, that was characterized by a DNA G+C content of 36.5–37.9 mol%, MK-7 as the predominant menaquinone system and iso-C_15 : 0(32 % of the total) as a major cellular fatty acid. In contrast to the type species of the genusBacillus, the strains contained peptidoglycan with lysine, aspartic acid, alanine and glutamic acid. Based on the distinctive peptidoglycan composition, phylogenetic analyses and physiology, the strains are assigned to a novel species within a new genus, for which the nameLysinibacillus boronitoleransgen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain ofLysinibacillus boronitoleransis strain 10a^T(=DSM 17140^T=IAM 15262^T=ATCC BAA-1146^T). It is also proposed thatBacillus fusiformisandBacillus sphaericusbe transferred to this genus asLysinibacillus fusiformiscomb. nov. andLysinibacillus sphaericuscomb. nov., respectively.

Identification of new sources of salt tolerance is particularly important to develop crop varieties suitable for saline soils. We evaluated 129 Pakistani and 58 exotic wheat landraces/cultivars grown in Hoagland's hydroponic nutrient solution, under control (tap water equivalent to 10 mM salt) and salt stress (200 mM NaCl) conditions. Forty-four genotypes were also tested under 250 mM NaCl stress. High heritability and positive correlations suggested that number of tillers per plant, root length, root fresh and dry weights, and shoot fresh and dry weights are associated with salt tolerance and could be used as selection criteria. SSR markers revealed high genetic variation in the wheat genotypes. Twelve SSR markers (cfd 1, cfd 9, cfd 18, cfd 46, cfd 49, cfd 183, wmc 11, wmc 17, wmc 18, wmc 154, wmc 432, and wmc 503) were found to be associated with salt tolerance because they were amplified in tolerant genotypes only. Five markers, cfd 9, cfd 18, cfd 183, wmc 96, and wmc 405, were identified as most suitable to evaluate salt tolerance because they were associated with four or more salt tolerance traits studied. Cultivars Pasban 90, accessions 10790, 10828, 10823, and 4098805 from Pakistan and Sakha-92 from Egypt performed best at both stress levels.