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Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #569
> > There are many phenolic groups in lignin and its decomposition products.
> > Lignin is found in terrestrial plants. Very loosely, it is like glue
> > that holds cellulose bundles together. Sort of the collagen of
> > terrestrial plants.
> Cellose is the rigid material in macrophytes or what we think of as
> regular plants.
I love it when people don't read what I took the time to write.
Cellulose comprises most of the rigid structural elements in plants.
Lignin is what is woven through the cellulose to bond it all together.
Most of the phenolic groups in humic acids of terrestrial origin are
derived from lignin.
> Phenol inhibits algaes but it also has an inhibitory
> effect on plants to a lesser degree. It is thought that some plants
> release phenols and other chemicals as a form of chemical warfare
> called allelopathy in order to compete with algae and other plants.
> Straw or hay has been used to clear algae or duckweed from ponds;
> it works extremely well!
There is more to that than the release of humic compounds with phenolic
groups when the hay decomposes. Part of the effect comes from bacteria
using the hay as a source of organic compounds, and the assimilation of
nitrogen and phosphorus from the water as bacterial biomass, which then
sinks into the sediment.
Yes, alleopathy is important, but it remains to be demonstrated what
beneficial effect the humic acids derived from fish meal and fish pooh
have on plants, as opposed to the spectrum of humic compounds they would
see in the wild.
> Does this give
> you any new ideas for treating blue-green cyano-bacteria?
I don't need any new ideas for controlling cyanobacteria. Biology works
fine for me.
Craig