BOTY202 - Plant Physiology & Anatomy - Science Assignment Help

Assignment Task

PLANT MINERAL NUTRITION
PART I: HARVESTING THE EXPERIMENT

Introduction
The recognition of distinctive deficiency symptoms has become a valuable diagnostic tool in determining the nutrient requirements for optimal crop yield. Hydroponic culturing of plants makes it possible to observe alterations in plant growth in media from which specific nutrients are excluded. In this way, characteristic deficiency symptoms can be obtained for a particular species, as can the optimal nutrient requirements of that species or variety.
There is some difficulty in determining the physiological nature of the “cause and effect” relationship between the absence of a particular mineral nutrient and the resulting symptoms. This is very much due to the varied and complex roles which such nutrients play in the physiology of the plant, however some broad associations can be made:
Chlorosis i.e. yellowing of tissue: can be associated with disruption of photosynthesis and/or chlorophyll production.
Reduced whole plant growth: associated with direct effects on primary cellular metabolism.
Reduced meristematic growth: more directly associated with effects on cell division and/or expansion of shoot and/or root apices. Alternatively, where effects are also observed on tissue of non-photosynthesising regions e.g. roots, such effects may be due to disruption of phloem (sugar) translocation.
Deformed Growth: likely to be due to effects on gene expression and/or regulation of differentiation and growth and may be relatd to disruption to hormone metabolism.
Necrosis i.e. tissue death: indicates an irreversible disruption of metabolism. The tissue may become greyish and wilted or develop black lesions indicating complete tissue breakdown.
Mobility: is the symptom expressed in old or young leaves? Plants have some ability to compensate for a lack of particular nutrients. The seed contains supplies of minerals and, when the seedling is transferred to a specific nutrient-excluded culture solution its ability to continue growing may be dependent upon its ability to transfer that nutrient from the older parts of the plant to the actively growing regions (largely via the phloem). In this respect, the omission of freely phloem-mobile nutrients, such as P, K and N, may not produce deficiency symptoms in growing tissue for some weeks, although older regions will show symptoms sooner.
Conversely, the omission of nutrients with little or no phloem mobility, e.g. Ca and Fe, may result in immediate effects on growing tissue.
Note the plants from a group that have used the other plant species i.e. sunflower or maize and see how their plants differs in the way the deficiency symptoms have been expressed (are they simlar or different?).

Procedure
In this practical session you will make observations of, and measurements on, the sunflower or maize plants which were placed in a particular culture solution three weeks earlier (refer to previous schedule, Part I)
1. Record any characteristic deficiency symptoms in relation to the morphology and growth patterns of the intact, nutrient-deficient plants; in comparison with control (Complete) plants using the descriptions outlined in the Introduction e.g. characteristics such as organ morphology (leaves, roots and stem), colouring, size, growth stunting, meristematic activity, differences between younger and older regions, and the appearance of chlorotic or necrotic regions. Prepare a table which records the morphological, colouring, age effects and chloroses and necroses of the tissues under the various deficiencies. Use the handout on Nutrient Deficiencies in Sunflower or Maize provided in the Practical to aid in your descriptions.
2. Following this examination, count the number of leaves on maize or the number of leaf pairs on sunflower.

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