Salinity is a major problem in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. The objective of our study is to investigate the effect of salt stress on uptake of Na+, K+ and micro-nutrients at seedling stage. For this purpose seeds of different genotypes of oat (JHO-822, JHO-851, KENT and UPO-94) were grown in Petri-dishes for ten days under different saline conditions (viz. 3, 6, 7.2, 10, 12 and 14 dSm-1). Distilled water was used as control. Results showed that Na+ content in coleoptiles of oat increased with increasing salinity levels while K+ decreased .The concentration of micro-nutrients (Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Pb and Cd) was differentially affected under saline conditions. Quantitatively, uptake of Fe and Mn was relatively higher in all cultivars while opposite trend was observed by Zn, Cu, Pb and Cd. However, uptake of these elements decreased with the increasing salinity.
