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Is Potassium not assimilated by plants ?
Elaine T wrote:
Andrew wrote: Potassium is not integrated into the plant strucure to any great extent. Potassium is predominantly involved in ion channels. It regulates potential across the cell membrane, providing energy for cellular processes, maintaining osmotic pressure, etc. Take away potassium and the cell's biological processes shut down. FWIW plants actually have quite a high potassium demand, second only to nitrogen. Andrew Define integrated. Remove a plant stalk, and you remove quite a bit of potassium from the closed tank system. While potassium is mostly cytosolic and not bound to protein, it is still intracellular (remember, high Na+ outside, high K+ inside). That means it is sequestered from the tank water and there is net uptake as plants grow. I believe that is Philippe's essential question, since he is confused about the accumulating potassium in his aquarium. As for which nutrients leave a dead plant first, my best guess (for the reasons stated above) is K, followed by N and P. As a general rule, it is preferable to remove dead plant matter from an aquarium rather than leave it to rot. Your answer is mostly interseting although some words as cytosolic is not used every day ;-) My main problem is to add Nitrates to keep the level at 30 ppm... As therfore I add too much Ca or Mg. K comes mainly from TMG and KH2PO4. If I increase waterchanges, I shall add still more nitrates :-( I will try to remove floating leaves ASAP ! Philippe |
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