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Soil salinity among other abiotic stresses is a major threat to cultivated land. Breeding salt tolerant cultivars has always been thought to be an effective and cheaper way to overcome salinity problem. Salt tolerant and salt sensitive wheat accessions were hybridized to develop genetic material to investigate inheritance of salt tolerance based on early seedling, adult plant and physiological responses. Salt tolerance in low salinity appeared to be a complex polygenic trait. However, genetic models for most responses were poor fit in high salinity and suggested further investigations. Differences in gene expressions in different NaCl concentrations appeared to be due to different gene regulation or interaction and/or involvement of additional or hidden genes. Both additive and non-additive gene effects required to be considered while designing of breeding programme for improving salt tolerance in wheat and in the statistical model used to find QTL for the salt tolerance. This QTL couple with recurrent selection for specific combining ability of the 4WLRG/1-8 with an excellent cultivar of wheat appears to be a good salt tolerant breeding strategy. © 2014 Friends Science Publishers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]