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Sodium and Silicon as Nutrients for the Tomato Plant

1957; Oxford University Press; Volume: 32; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1104/pp.32.4.317

1532-2548

Joseph T. Woolley,

Silicon Effects in Agriculture

The possible essentiality of sodium, silicon, and aluminum in the nutrition of higher plants has been the subject of controversy for many years. The fact that these elements are almost ubiquitous has made the problem of ascertaining their status extremely difficult. This study was undertaken to determine at what level any one of these three elements might be needed by the tomato plant, if it were essential for the growth and development of this plant. Most techniques for critically investigating essentiality of nutrient elements involve the extensive use of Pyrex laboratory glassware in all phases of the investigations. That this glassware is soluble to a certain extent is well known. Wichers, Finn, and Clabaugh (8) gave figures for the solubility of Pyrex glass #774 in hot distilled water. Further, it has been the experience in this laboratory that at least part of the boron requirement of plants could be obtained from Pyrex beakers in which the plants were cultured. In view of this fact and from a consideration of the composition of Pyrex (8), it would seem possible that plants might obtain significant amounts of ? a, Si, and Al from such containers. Fortunately, the increasing availability of polyethylene ware, coupled with the increasing purity of the salts available from the chemical supply houses, has provided means by which the study of the possible essentiality of these three elements has been made practical. Al was added as a treatment in these experiments because this element is one which could probably be supplied by Pyrex glassware, but no Al analyses were made.