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The effect of iron ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid on the growth and metabolism of tomato plants in water culture

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Summary

Tomato plants were grown in nutrient culture either continuously or discontinuously treated with FeSO4 or with Fe-EDTA. FeSO4 rapidly gave a precipitate of Fe2O3.nH2O but remained, under the conditions of the experiments, available to the plants. Fe absorbed from Fe-EDTA in the nutrient medium was less effective in inducing tomato plant growth than iron supplied as ferrous sulphate. This cannot be explained in terms of luxury consumption or by phosphate-induced internal iron immobilization.

Plants grown continuously with Fe-EDTA as an iron source showed consistently higher peroxidase and catalase activities. Chlorotic plants treated for a few days with FeSO4 exhibited mostly equal or higher enzyme activities than those treated with Fe-EDTA. The ratio of green and yellow chloroplast pigments was constant under all the tested levels of iron nutrition.

Although there were significant differences in iron utilization, enzyme activities, and some symptoms of slightly modified growth, the main conclusion of this investigation is that, under these strictly comparable conditions, plant metabolism has not been modified considerably by the use of the synthetic iron chelates.

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  1. Institute for Soil Fertility, Groningen, the Netherlands

    W. Van Driel

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Van Driel, W. The effect of iron ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid on the growth and metabolism of tomato plants in water culture. Plant Soil 20, 85–104 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01378101

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