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Analysis by Digestion and Colorimetric Assay of Total Nitrogen in Plant Tissues High in Nitrate 1
Author(s) -
Cataldo D. A.,
Schrader L. E.,
Youngs V. L.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
crop science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.76
H-Index - 147
eISSN - 1435-0653
pISSN - 0011-183X
DOI - 10.2135/cropsci1974.0011183x001400060024x
Subject(s) - digestion (alchemy) , nitrate , ammonium , nitrogen , colorimetry , plant tissue , ammonium nitrate , chromatography , ammonia , biology , colorimetric analysis , chemistry , botany , biochemistry , organic chemistry , ecology
A method is proposed for analysis of total nitrogen in plant tissues enabling predigestion (to reduce nitrate to ammonium) and digestion to be performed in a Folin‐Wu tube. Following digestion, a sensitive colorimetric assay for ammonium is used to quantitate N‐content in an aliquot of the digest. The proposed method has several advantages: 1) up to 110 tissue samples can be predigested and digested in one batch; 2) small tissue samples (5 to 100 mg) can be accommodated; 3) the colorimetric assay for ammonia is very sensitive; 4) tissues can be predigested to recover all nitrate in the samples; and 5) aliquot size from the diluted digest can be varied to effectively detect as little as 1 µg of N.