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Looking for scientific papers on whether aquatic plants need potassium

rebel

Member
Joined
4 Aug 2015
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2,270
Hi everyone,

Someone has mentioned elsewhere aquatics don't need K so need some scientific articles to back me up. Thanks for your help and links.

[ There is no need for a long discussion on this; I love special K for my aquatics, just that I need to show someone else without just using anaecdotes ]
 
Many submerse plant biochemistry studies are done with rice species, so perhaps use those as a starting point
 
Potassium - a non limiting nutrient in fresh waters? J.F.Talling.

If you want to wave away the background level argument my tuppence would be that if you put an aquatic plant in a container with zero K water it will still use the K it has in its tissues to transport waste out from the plant, if you don't remove that K that ends up in the water then the plant will just uptake it again and continue to transport elements, maybe grow a little more slowly, perhaps sacrifice a leaf or multiple parts of a leaf to reduce the amount of transportation needed to be done and continue to try grow normally or modify its tissues to survive in a K depleted environment.

Can a plant survive entirely on the K stored in it's seed for a lifetime of the plants growth, I dunno, I'm pretty sure it would thrive best if it came by more as it grew.

Algae study because all plants are descended from it!
 
NPK are the cornerstones for plant life. Surely that can't be discounted because it lives underwater?

Do whales not need the same nutrients as other mammals just because they live in the water?
 
In general P and K are the flowering and fruiting excelerators in terrestrial (grow form) plants. For many flowering plants it is common practice to add extra P and K at this stage to get more and bigger flowers and or more and bigger fruit. Since a terrestrial plant that is forced to grow submersed in its aqautic form will not/never flower and only grow vegetative and is most depended on N.

In theory the major function of K in the plant is its water regulation and breathing mechanisme, the opening and closing from the stomata. Since research revealed that most aquatic formed leaves on most plants do not develop nore depend on this stomata. I can imagine that someone adding all this logic in a sum would think hence it doesn;t need K!?.

But what they probably are missing is, K is absorbed by the plant as a K+ positive ion, it is next to N the most needed element. It's also a transporter and compensator binding with negative ions such as N, P, sugars and amino acids. As plant in aqautic form it might need K less than its terrestrial flowering form but it still is indispensable for the plants lifelycle. :)

For the rest is K indeed a very mysterious element, there is still a lot unknown about all its functions and depending on the plant spp. in dry weight a plant only contains 1 to 5% K.

Finding scientific papers on the role of K in a plant might simply be enough to dispute the claim..
 
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Thanks heaps! That will do.

Your info is fascinating about K in general.

I didnt want to make any informal logical fallacies when countering this one.

Also the onus was on the other side to prove it but I thought it would be easy for me (non expert) to research it. As usual the details are tricky and more nuanced. :)

I might chase Karen Randall and Tom Barr as well but FB can become cesspit of bad ideas so fast.....

Thanks again.
 
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