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Re: Iron: a factoid and two questions
On Thu, 19 Aug 1999, Dan Drake wrote:
> ac554 at freenet_carleton.ca (David Whittaker) commented:
> >
> > >...
> >
> > One wishes to measure only the iron available to the plants. An acid
> > digestion might catch iron which is normally not available.
>
> True. This raises my other question: Does anyone know what _is_
> available to the plants?
From what I've read, there isn't just one answer to the question. I seems
that ferrous iron is used by preference. Ferric iron can be used;
under conditions of iron stress plants resort to at least two different
means of scavenging iron from the environments and generally that means
scavenging Fe from precipitated oxyhydroxides. Perhaps some plants would
have no means of getting ferric iron, while others will have more
substantial means.
Roger Miller