Salt-tolerant oat variety Zhangyan 7(A)and salt-sensitive variety Bayou 18(B)were used as experimental materials to study the effects of different salt stress treatments(control 0.0%,0.2%,0.4%and 0.6%)on the growth,photosynthetic physiological characteristics and the contents of phenolic substances in oat grains.The results showed that,with the increase of salt concentration,the emergence rate,plant height,dry weight per plant,fresh weight per plant and leaf water content of A and B decreased significantly.Under 0.2%salt concentration,the Pn,Ci,SOD and POD activities of the two varieties were significantly higher than those of the control.The SPAD and Tr of A and B were higher than control at 0.4%salt concentration.Under the treatment of 0.6%concentration salt,Ls reached the highest peak,and variety A was higher than B.When the salt concentration were 0.6%and 0.4%,the contents of total phenol and total flavonoid in seeds of varieties A and B reached the highest level,respectively.When the salt concentration was 0.6%,the antioxidant capacity of two varieties reached the highest.In summary,salt stress can affect plant growth,reduce photosynthetic indexes,and improve enzyme activity,phenolic substances and antioxidant capacity of oat.Moreover,salt stress had a greater inhibitory effect on salt-sensitive Bayou 18 than salt-tolerant variety Zhangyan 7.