Chapter 25 Plant Nutrition and Transport Flashcards
Where do plants get their nutrients from?
Carbon from CO2, H and O2 mostly from water
Nitrogen from bacteria and fungi
Phosphorus, sulfer and other mineral nutrients from soil
What are essential elements
Element that when absent severely disrupt plant growth and reproduction
What macronutrients do plants need?
Nitrogen Phosphorus Potassium Sulphur Calcium Magnesium
What micronutrients do plants need?
Iron Chlorine Manganese Zinc Copper Nickel Boron Molybdenum
How were the six macronutrients identified/
Hydroponically
Why is identifying micronutrients more difficult
A seed may contain enough to suply a plant through its lifetime and laboratories need to be controlled with special air filters
What does soil provide to a plant?
Anchorage
Nutrients and water
O2 for root respiration
Soil organisms
What are the living and nonliving componetns of soil?
Living - plant roots, bacteria, protists, animals and insects
Nonliving - rock fragments, dissolved mineral nutrients, air spaces and dead organic matter
What are the horizons of soil?
horizontal layers A Horizon (topsoil) - most of living an dead organic matter B horizon (subsoil) - accumulates material from topsoil and parent rock C Horizon (parent rock) from which soil arises
How is parent rock weathered?
mechanical - by wetting, drying and freezing
Chemical - oxidation, water and acids
What is soil fertility
ability to support plant growth
What is humus?
Dead organic matter in soil
- used as food source for microbes
- Improves soil texture - creates air spaces to increase O2 availability to plant roots
What i sloam?
soil with sand, silt and clay that holds sufficient air, water and nutrients for platns
What does clay do?
binds water - is covered with negatively charged chemical groups that bind cations of important minerals (prevents them being leached out but also makes them unavailabe for plant updtake)
Where do minerals need to be for them to be available to plants?
A horizon - topsoil
What is the process of ion exchange?
Cations are released into the soil solution, thus made available to plant roots
- Root hairs pump protons (H+) out of the cell and cellular respiration releases CO2
- CO2 dissolves in soil water to form carbonic acid which ionizes
- H+ concentration around roots inccreases
- Protons bind to clay stronger than mineral cations, so swap places
How are negatively charged prevented from leaching?
There is no process for them to be bound or released
They aren’t
What are the 3 ways to replenish depleted soil nutrients from crop harvesting?
1) Shifting agriculture - mote to another location and natural processes replenish soil
2) Organic fertilizers - humus
3) Chemical fertilizers
What are the Differences between chemical and organic fertilizeres?
Organic - organisms break down into simple molecules for plants to use
Chemical - supply minerals directly in forms that are easily used
What is the disadvantage of chemical fertilizers?
Require alot of energy to produce
Describe the formation of arbuscular mycorrhizae
Roots produce strigolactones that stimulate growth of fungal hyphae towards root
- Fungi signal plant to form prepenetration apparatus (PPA) which guides the growth of fungal hyphae to root cortex
- Arbuscules from inside root cortical cell where nutrient exchange occurs
Describe the formation of nitrogen fixing nodules
Legume plant roots release flavenoids that attract rhizobia bacteria and stimulate Nod factor prouction - causes root cortex cells to divide and form nodule
- Bacteria enter nodule cell and differentiate into bacteroids that can fix nitrogen