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Influence of Nutrient Concentration on the Growth and Chemical Composition of Alfalfa 1
Author(s) -
Wallace Arthur
Publication year - 1952
Publication title -
agronomy journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.752
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1435-0645
pISSN - 0002-1962
DOI - 10.2134/agronj1952.00021962004400020001x
Subject(s) - citation , composition (language) , nutrient , library science , history , computer science , art , biology , literature , ecology
LFALFA has been reported to maintain a constant A cation m.e. sums (1,15) and also a constant cationanion ratio (14,16). It has been observed that these relationships are not simple and that certain irregularities exist (13). For example, the cation m.e. sum of comparable field samples of this plant varied from 99 to 194 while the anion m.e. sum simultaneously varied from 174 to 375. The ratio of the cations to the anions in these alfalfa samples ranged from 0.38 to 0.73. Alfalfa, when grown in water and sand cultures, ordinarily contains much higher cation and anion values than does field-grown alfalfa of the same maturity. This fact suggested that a nutrient concentration factor is at least partly responsible for some of the above observations. For this reason the cation and anion characteristics of alfalfa were further studied by growing it in sand culture with solutions of varying total concentration of essential nutrients, but all at the same ratio. This report discusses the results of that experiment.