  In the present paper we present JHK photometric results of the young embedded
cluster NGC 2316. We construct the cluster radial profile from which we
determine a radius of 0.63 pc. We find 189 $\pm$ 29 cluster members in an
extinction limited sub-sample of the survey, 22 $\pm$ 19 of which are possibly
substellar. An average extinction of 4.5 visual magnitudes is derived using
(H-K) colours of control fields. This extinction is due to the presence of
residual parental molecular cloud. NGC 2316 presents 16% source fraction of
excess emission which is consistent with other results from clusters with an
age of 2-3 Myr. This age is consistent with the distribution of sources in the
colour-magnitude diagram when compared to theoretical isochrones, and the
overall shape of the cluster KLF. The substellar population of the cluster is
similar or smaller than that observed for other embedded clusters and the
stellar objects dominate the cluster membership.
