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RE: Plant deficiancies
Greger Lindstrand wrote:
"I would like to point out one thing I have always wished could be found on
the net.
- - Pictures of plant deficiances and the cure for them."
...
"Does such a place exist already?
Do any of you have any plant deficiency pictures?
Is there an intrest in this group for such a project?"
There are several sites that have photographs of commercial crops displaying
symptoms of deficiencies. The visible symptoms of nutrient deficiency are
similar enough to be of some use to us as aquatic gardeners.
I presume that you want to have photos of aquatic plants showing deficiency
symptoms. It might be a valuable project, provided it is done right - i.e.
you would have to confirm that the visible symptoms seen in the plant are
indeed caused by a lack of a particular nutrient, and not caused by
something else. This would probably entail having a lot of tanks set up and
access to a good lab which could test plant tissue for the levels of the
various nutrients of interest to us. You would have to determine an optimum
level or range for each nutrient and that may or may not be the same for
different species of aquatic plants. You would need photos (and leaf
analysis) of the plants growing under optimum conditions (again, probably
different for each species). Once you have confirmed a deficiency (via leaf
tissue analysis) you would have to be able to "cure" it by adding that
nutrient (and ONLY that nutrient) and then be able to show that the plant
arrived at "optimum" condition again (both thru photographs and more tissue
analysis).
If you're up to the task, go for it. It will take a lot of space, a lot of
time and a lot of money (for all those tissue sample tests). Just collecting
photos from fellow hobbyists who might _think_ that their plants are
deficient in something is probably both a waste of time and potentially
misleading. Nutrient deficiencies can probably only be confirmed by tissue
analysis and not many hobbyists go to that length.
James Purchase
Toronto