Hydroponic systems have been utilized as one of the standard methods for plant biology research and are also used in commercial production for several crops, including lettuce and tomato. Within the plant research community, numerous hydroponic systems have been designed to study plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Here we present a hydroponic protocol that can be easily implemented...

Cytokinins influence many aspects of plant growth and development. The current model for cytokinin signaling is a multi-step phosphorelay similar to the prokaryotic two-component systems that are used in responses to environmental stimuli. Recently, progress has been made in improving our understanding of the molecular mechanism that underlies cytokinin signaling. Molecular and genetic analyses...

Identifying the linkages between nutrient properties and plant size is important for reducing uncertainty in understanding the mechanisms of plant phenotypic plasticity. Although the positive effects of grazing exclusion on plant morphological plasticity has been well documented, surprisingly little is known about the relationship of nutrient strategies with plant shoot size after long-term gra...

Within the last two decades, a series of papers have dealt with the effects of nutrition and nutrient deficiency, as well as salt stress, on the long-distance transport and partitioning of nutrients in castor bean. Flows in xylem and phloem were modelled according to an empirically-based modelling technique that permits additional quantification of the uptake and incorporation into plant organs...

introduction grain legumes are considered as the second source of human nutrition after cereals and play an important role in community food supply, sustainable agriculture and economic profitability. among grain legumes, common bean has the most consumption in the world compared with others. however there are always some constraints in common bean production and drought is most important facto...

A non-destructive cultivation system was developed to study the dynamics of phosphorus (Pi) uptake by mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal maize plantlets. The system consisted of a plant container connected via silicon tubes to a glass bottle containing a nutrient solution supplemented with Pi. The nutrient solution is pumped with a peristaltic pump to the upper part of the container via the silico...

Nitrogen and potassium are the two fertilizer elements that are needed in largest amounts in most tung orchards of the southern United States. Supplying these elements at the optimum rates and in the proper ratios is an important nutritional problem. Leaf analysis has proved to be a valuable criterion .of the nutritional status of tung trees, and, as more basic information on the relation of mi...

B acteria had been around long before multi-cellular eukaryotes evolved and quickly began to colonize these new life forms as another suitable habitat and potential source of nutrients. Nearly all higher organisms across taxa now have bacterial communities living on and within them—from mutually beneficial symbioses to antagonistic parasitic conflicts. They have co-evolved with their microbiota...

For many plant species, nutrient availability induces important anatomical responses, particularly the production of low-density tissues to the detriment of supporting tissues. Due to the contrasting biomechanical properties of plant tissues, these anatomical responses may induce important modifications in the biomechanical properties of plant organs. The aim of this study was to determine the ...