Plant Nutrients & their importance for high value farming (Part - 1)

           A plant nutrient is a chemical element that is essential for plant growth & reproduction. “Essential element” is a term often used to identify a plant nutrient. Presently the term is “Plant nutrient”. Commonly for an element to be an element, it is must to fit certain criteria.

1.     The first criterion is that the element must be required by plant to complete its life cycle i.e. from seed to seed.

2.     The second criterion is that no other element substitutes fully for the element being considered as a nutrient. For example, in an enzymatic reaction manganese may be considered as substitute to magnesium but no other element can replace magnesium by being constituent of chlorophyll.

3.     The third criterion is that all plants require the element.

All the nutrients that have been identified as nutrients, however, do not meet fully these criteria.

There are 17 nutrients which meet these criteria and can be designated as “Plant Nutrients”. The three nutrients of which are derived from air like carbon, hydrogen & oxygen and 14 of these nutrients are obtained from soil or nutrient solutions.

Few elements that are required by plants in considerable quantities (Macro-nutrients), generally accumulating to 0.1% and upward of the dry mass in plants tissues, were shown to be nutrients in the mid-1800s. Most of the elements required in small quantities in plants (Micro-nutrients), generally accumulating to amount less than 0.01% of the dry mass of plant tissues, were shown to be essential only after techniques were improved enough to ensure that the water, media, atmosphere and seed did not contain sufficient amount of nutrients to meet the needs of the plants.

  

Beneficial elements may stimulate the growth or may be required by only certain plants. Silicon, cobalt and sodium are notable beneficial elements. Selenium, aluminum, vanadium and other elements have been suggested to enhance growth of the plants. Nickel is an example of an element that was classified as beneficial but recently has been shown to be essential.

List of plant nutrients-

Ø Macro-nutrients-

·        Primary nutrients-

1.     Nitrogen

2.     Phosphorus

3.     Potassium

·        Secondary nutrients

1.     Calcium

2.     Magnesium

3.     Sulfur

Ø Micro-nutrients-

1.     Iron

2.     Manganese

3.     Copper

4.     Boron

5.     Zinc

6.     Molybdenum

7.     Chlorine

8.     Nickel

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