Dear David,
Thanks for this. I will follow up on some of the ideas, although some
I have already tried, and they did not work! I know Epstein and his
reviews, but he only cites the Japanese work I mentioned. You are
correct about Equisetum (no shortage of Japanese data on that!), but
other ferns are much more tricky. I have tried SCI on line, and had
success with other plant groups, but not ferns. I am beginning to
suspect that not much has been done on this group, but you never know,
some one out there might have an obscure thesis or paper in Russian
etc.!!!
Best Wishes,
Martin


(David Hershey) wrote in message . com...
Emanuel Epstein of the University of California at Davis has been one
the recent reviewers of silicon in plant nutrition. He has promoted
the idea that silicon should be considered an essential element even
though it may not fit the traditional definition of an essential
element.

Epstein, E. 1999. Silicon. Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant
Molecular Biology 50:641-664.

Silicon nutrition of Equisteum has probably been studied more than
that of other ferns allies because silicon has definitely been shown
to be essential for Equisetum.

Hoffman, F. M., and Hillson, C. J. 1979. Effects of silicon on the
life cycle of Equisetum hyemale L. Botanical Gazette 140(2):127-132.

The Role of Silicon in Plant Susceptibility to Disease
http://www.fiu.edu/%7Echusb001/Giant...nt_Health.html

Silicon: The Estranged Medium Element
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_EP075.html

If you can get access to the online version of Science Citation Index,
you can probably track find most of the available literature.

David R. Hershey