Plants competing with algae

• To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
• Subject: Plants competing with algae
• From: George Booth <booth at hpmtlgb1_lvld.hp.com>
• Date: Tue, 19 Sep 1995 16:36:08 -0600
• In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 19 Sep 1995 15:39:02 EDT." <199509191939.PAA22740 at looney_actwin.com>

I think all of us at one time or another have stated that it's good to
densely plant because "plants outcompete algae for nutrients".

I've always felt uncomfortable about this.  Does anybody know the
basis of this statement?  Can plants use nutrients faster, thus
removing them from the water before algae can use them?  This seems a
little far fetched.  Nutrients should be evenly distributed in the
water column, easily usable by anything nearby.  

I prefer the "allelochemcal" reasoning for dense planting.

Any opinions?

George

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