Plant Nutrients by Periodic Table
True or False: Plants can utilize Fluorine in small amounts as a beneficial nutrient.
100 Bonus: Fluorine is in the same category as Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Chlorine
False
100 Bonus: True, they are all diatomic non-metals
What are the three corners of the plant disease triangle?
Pest Presence
/ \
/ \
Susceptible Host ------Conducive Environment
What is the macronutrient that is most represented in plant tissue at around 2%?
100 Bonus: What are the two forms of this element that we add to our nutrients.
Nitrogen
100 Bonus: Nitrate and Ammonium
What is the name we use for light between 400-700nm in frequency?
100 Bonus: Does the name change if we expand the range to 380-720nm?
Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR)
100 Bonus: Extended PAR (ePAR)
Knowing that magnesium is used in the creation of chlorophyll, would you expect magnesium to be more concentrated in the leaves or the roots of the plant?
Magnesium is found in greater abundance in the leaves of the plant.
True or False: Sodium can be antagonistic to Potassium uptake because they are part of the same category of elements.
100 Bonus: Name the category/categories that those elements are in.
True
100 Bonus: Both Sodium and Potassium are part of the Alkali Metals
True or False: Pythium has multiple chemical and physical properties that prevent other soil borne plant pathogens from infecting the same plant.
False: Pythium's strategy is to grow quickly and spread before it can be outcompeted. Pythium is often a secondary colonizer after other organisms that can damage or weaken the plant.
100 Bonus: Is it mobile or immobile?
100 Bonus: What is the primary element that is antagonistic to it?
Calcium
100 Bonus: Mobile
100 Bonus: Magnesium
Name the lowest energy wavelength in the Photosynthetically Active Ration Range that we use in our LED lights.
Red Light/Far read
While not an essential nutrient, silicon is rapidly transported after absorption and forms silicon rich layers within the epidermis of the plant. Do you expect to find more silicon in the phyllosphere or the rhizosphere?
The phyllosphere
What is the heaviest of the essential plant nutrients?
200 Bonus: What is the atomic number and atomic weight of that element?
Molybdenum
200 Bonus: Atomic number 42 and atomic weight of 95.95
Many necrotrophic plant pathogens must kill plant cells with enzymes, toxins, or peptides elicitors in order to feed on them. Young root cells are the most vulnerable. What is it called when plant pathogens attach and kill the roots of seedling plants?
Dampening off
What is the essential macronutrient that is responsible for chlorophyll creation?
100 Bonus: Is it mobile or immobile?
100 Bonus: What is the primary macronutrient that is antagonistic to it?
Magnesium
100 Bonus: Immobile
100 Bonus: Calcium
Name at least one symptom of plants receiving excessive light.
Photobleaching, tougher-thicker leaves, bitter flavor, drought stress, and in more extreme cases leaf curling and spiraling.
Copper has limited transport in plants, so where would the highest concentration be in the plant?
100 Bonus: What physiological feature withing the plant is used to transport ions and nutrients from the roots to the leaves?
The roots
100 Bonus: The xylem
There is only one micronutrient that is not a transition metal. What is it?
200 Bonus: What category is that element in?
Boron
200 Bonus: Metalloid
In order infect the roots, pythium hyphae attach behind the tip of the root. It would be disadvantageous to attach to the pointed tip of the root because of what structure?
300 Bonus: What is the name of the special tissue located behind that pointed tip that allows for the growth of the root.
The root cap aka columella. It is a dense apical point of that root used to protect the root from things like rocks while it is probing the soil.
300 Bonus: Apical meristem or root apical meristem (RAM)
Name the essential micronutrient that is key to ammonium metabolism. It is the smallest micronutrient addition by volume.
100 Bonus: Is it mobile or immobile?
Molybdenum
100 Bonus: Immobile
Name the deficiency that shows symptoms such as etiolation, light green young leaves, and slower growth.
Light deficiency
One macronutrient and one micronutrient can be commonly associated with plant cell walls. What are they?
100 Bonus: What organic molecule forms the majority of the cell wall content?
Calcium and Boron
100 Bonus: Cellulose
List at least 3 elements that are not essential for plant growth, but are still beneficial.
Vanadium, Selenium, Titanium, Nickel, Cobalt, & Aluminum
Once the pythium spore infects the roots and penetrates the epidermis, it reaches the next layer of tissue in the roots. What is that tissue called? The hyphae then produce toxins that poison the tissue and proceed up the root towards the stem causing the distinct coloration we see with necrotic roots.
The cortex
Name the essential micronutrient that is responsible for enzyme cofactors, pollen viability, lignin formation, carbohydrate metabolism, stress resilience, and creation of plastocyanin which transfers electrons during photosynthesis.
100 Bonus: is it mobile or immobile?
Copper
100 Bonus: Immobile
Would photosynthesis be more efficient with a thicker or thinner boundary layer?
100 Bonus: Describe what a boundary layer is.
100 Bonus: How would you measure a boundary layer?
It would be less efficient with a thicker boundary layer since there would be less resistance to gas exchange.
100 Bonus: The boundary layer is a "cloud" of humidity that forms around the plant as a byproduct of transpiration.
100 Bonus: Humidity sensors and measurements taken within the phyllosphere.
Most of the chlorine in plants is not incorporated into organic molecules or dry matter, but remains in sap solution as chloride and is loosely bound to organic molecules.
During the photoperiod, would you expect there to be more chlorine in the phyllosphere or the rhizosphere?
The most sap would be in the phyllosphere during the photoperiod, so there would also be the greatest chlorine concentration.