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Re: CO2 limiting growth
Chris Bostick wrote:
> Have a quick question. My plants will bubble, or I think some people call
> this pealing, and it is seems to be directly related to the amount of co2 in
> to water. If the co2 were taken off, yeast bottles, the bubbling stops.
> Now I know the bubbling is oxygen, but what does that mean, does this mean
> that the plants are growing faster when they are bubbling faster?
With all else being equal and other nutrients supplied to meet demand,
more bubbling should mean faster growth.
> Most importantly does this mean that the co2 is probably the limiting factor
> in growth since it does have a direct effect?
Normally that would be true, but not always. Nutrient-limited plants
can photosynthesize more than they can use. Shortages of nitrogen or
phosphorus can cause that. When growth is nutrient-limited the extra
sugars that the plants produce through photosynthesis may just be lost
into the water and never get transformed into new growth. The plants
will bubble and bubble, but you don't see the growth that you would
expect to go along with all the bubbling. You might instead just see
some weird algae problems.
Roger Miller