Scientia Horticulturae 275 (2021) 109718 Available online 11 September 2020 0304-4238/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Effects of varying concentrations of different salts on mineral composition of leaves and roots of three pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) cultivars O. Dichala a, *, I. Therios a , A. Papadopoulos b , T. Chatzistathis b , C. Chatzisavvidis c , C. Antonopoulou c a Laboratory of Pomology, School of Agriculture, Aristotle University, 54124, Thessaloniki, Greece b Hellenic Agricultural Organization (H.A.O.) ‘Demeter’, Institute of Soil and Water Resources, 57001, Thermi, Thessaloniki, Greece c Department of Agricultural Development, Democritus University of Thrace, Orestiada, Greece A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Salinity Nutrients Salt tolerance Chlorophyll Carotenoids ABSTRACT The present investigation assesses the behavior of three pomegranate cultivars (Punica granatum L.) (‘Wonderful’, ‘Ermioni’ and ‘Grenada’) under increased concentrations of three salts (NaCl, KCl and K 2 SO 4 ) after 150 days of growth in vivo conditions. The aim of this research was to study the nutrient accumulation and distribution in leaves and roots and its effects on total chlorophyll (a + b), carotenoids, photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance of leaves. In general, high salt supply of KCl and K 2 SO 4 led to significant decline in Ca and Mg concentration in leaves in all cultivars. ‘Grenada’ found with the highest concentration of Mn in leaves under all salt treatments. Regarding the roots, ‘Wonderful’ had the highest Mg concentration at 25, 50 and 75 mM of KCl and K 2 SO 4 , while ‘Ermioni’ had the maximum Ca concentration in roots. Chlorophyll concentration was reduced by the effect of KCl and K 2 SO 4 salts in all cultivars. Furthermore, K 2 SO 4 salt significantly reduced carotenoid concentration in leaves in all cultivars, especially ‘Wonderful’ showed 63.36 % reduction. ‘Grenada’ had the lowest photosynthetic rate and K 2 SO 4 salt exerted a significant effect in all cultivars. Regarding stomatal conductance, ‘Ermioni’ had the highest values with KCl and K 2 SO 4 salt treatments, while ‘Grenada’ was the most affected cultivar by all salts and at all concentrations. Our findings show the considerable potential of exploiting saline soils to obtain pomegranate plants with higher level of salt tolerance. Furthermore, our results suggest that ‘Wonderful’ and ‘Ermioni’ pomegranate cultivars may be cultivated also under marginal saline conditions. 1. Introduction Salinity in soils appears to be one of the most serious problems in agriculture, being a limiting factor in the productivity of arable land (Flowers, 2006). On a worldwide scale, 20 % of arable lands and 50 % of irrigated lands are affected by salinity (Mastrogiannidou et al., 2016). The resistance of plants to salinity, depends on the genotype of plant species and the development of morphological, physiological and biochemical mechanisms of ion homeostasis and synthesis of osmolytes that promote growth of plants under adverse conditions (Muchate et al., 2016). Sodium and Cl  ions play a key role in salinity and are transported into the plants passively. Na + ions compete with K + , Ca 2+ and Mg 2+ binding sites on the carrier proteins (Blumwald et al., 2000). On the contrary, presence of salts can increase P concentration of leaves. Pomegranate is relatively tolerant to salinity and have been showed in an experiment with pomegranate plants irrigated with various salt levels that the concentrations of Fe, Zn, Cu and Mn in leaves and roots were reduced (Hasanpour et al., 2015). The mechanisms responsible for its salt resistance or tolerance are still unknown. Furthermore, there are a few studies on the resistance of pomegranate varieties to different salinity levels (Okhovatian -Ardakani et al., 2010). Irrigation water containing high concentrations of NaCl showed that tissues accumulated K + , Cl  and Na + as the concentration of these ions in irrigation water increased. In ’Malas Shirin’ pomegranate cultivar (cv) 1 higher concen- tration than 40 mM NaCl decreased the length of central shoot and leaf area, indicating the ability of the pomegranate plant to accumulate salts in its tissues (Naeini et al., 2006). El-Agamy et al. (2010) in an in vitro * Corresponding author at: Hellenic Agricultural Organization – Demeter, Institute of Soil and Water Resources, Thermi, Thessaloniki, 57001, P.O. Box 60435, Greece. E-mail address: olga.dichala@gmail.com (O. Dichala). 1 cv: cultivar Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Scientia Horticulturae journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scihorti https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2020.109718 Received 7 April 2020; Received in revised form 31 August 2020; Accepted 2 September 2020