This is interesting because it shows you that if you want to manipulate hormones in an experiment you can use plant growth regulators to mimic the action of hormones.
Plant hormones and growth regulators are chemicals that affect flowering; aging; root growth; killing of leaves; prevention or promotion of stem elongation; color enhancement of fruit; prevention of leafing and/or leaf fall; etc.
Plants require 13 mineral nutrient elements
for growth
Macronutrients (nitrogen,
phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulfur) are plant nutrients
required in the largest amount in plants. Micronutrients (iron, copper,
manganese, zinc, boron, molybdenum and chlorine) are required in
relatively smaller amounts. Additional mineral nutrient elements which are
beneficial to plants but not necessarily essential include sodium, cobalt,
vanadium, nickel, selenium, aluminum and silicon
Plants can be damaged is there is too much of one nutrient (toxicity) or not enough of a nutrient (deficiency).
A nutrient deficiency
occurs when the nutrient is not in sufficient quantity to meet the needs
of the growing plant. Nutrient toxicity occurs when a plant nutrient is in
excess and decreases plant growth or quality
Essential plant nutrients: their
relative amounts in plants, functions and classification
This table will be very helpful as a visual aid for determining if your experiment is functioning properly. Remember, you can only experiment on one nutrient at a time.
This page deals with the nutrients required for plant survival and plant growth. As well as the substances which are hazardous to plant growth and what complications can arise when these complications occur.
Sixteen chemical elements are required for the growth of all plants: carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen (these three are obtained from carbon dioxide and water), plus nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron, manganese, zinc, copper, boron, molybdenum, and chlorine. Some plant species also require one or more of the elements cobalt, sodium, vanadium, and silicon.
13 essential mineral nutrien
J. R. Brown (ed.), Recommended Chemical Soil Test Procedures for the North Central Region, Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station, Columbia, 1998
The plants showed no reaction at all to country and western music
the plants "liked" the jazz that
she played them
leaned 30 to 70 degrees away from the
speakers
Her first experiment was to simply play
a constant tone
The plants in the first chamber, with the
constant tone, died within fourteen days.
In the chamber with the soothing music, the plants were growing healthily and
their stems were starting to bend towards the radio! In the rock chamber, half the plants
had small leaves and had grown gangly, while the others were stunted. After two weeks, the
plants in the soothing-music chamber were uniform in size, lush and green, and were
leaning between 15 and 20 degrees toward the radio. The plants in the rock chamber had
grown extremely tall and were drooping, the blooms had faded and the stems were bending
away from the radio.
Plants do like noise. Plants exposed to a set frequency of sound tend to germinate more quickly, grow taller and weigh more than those kept in silence. Both 50,000 hz ultrasound (above the human hearing range) and 5,000 hz sound seem to work. Therefore, there's a good chance that plants like any sound you might play for them, including music.
Plants also like good, attentive care. If you are playing music you like for a plant, it may lead you to take better care of it. You will be more likely to carefully water and feed the plant and make sure it has good light. It might look like the music helps the plant grow, when you are actually taking better care of it.
Plants like carbon dioxide. If you are standing by a plant, singing to it, it is going to absorb some carbon dioxide from your breath. This could help it to grow more quickly.
The one that was in the best condition was the plant that was
in the room with classical music. The second best plant was the
one in the room with no music and the one that didn't do so good
was the one in the room with rock music.
Because bamboo is a sustainable option vs regular tree wood, I'm interested in what conditions (nutritional or environmental) would better improve the growth. This article gives statistics and extra information about bamboo
certain electrolytes allow nutrients to move through the plant cell membrane, possibly allowing for quicker growth which could be essential for a plants survival if it needs to grow faster than a weed or something harmful to it.
Typically, stems show positive phototropism (movement toward the light), whereas roots exhibit negative phototropic movement (away from the source of light).
Arabidopsis contains two phototropins referred to as phot1 and phot2. Mutants of Arabidopsis lacking both phototropins lose their phototropic responsiveness
these responses serve to enhance the photosynthetic
Phototropins, like photoreceptor pigments associated with mammalian vision, comprise many amino acids (900–1000) that form the main structure of the protein (the apoprotein) to which an accessory chemical cofactor is bound that can absorb light and impart color (the chromophore)
a small fraction of the receptor pool is rapidly internalized (within minutes) upon blue light irradiation
Phototropins are typically associated with the plasma membrane
However, the biological significance
As light passes through the stem, it becomes progressively diffracted, thereby generating a gradient of phototropin activation across the organ, with the highest level of activity occurring on the irradiated side
In some plant species, including the fern Adiantum capillus-veneris, phototropism and chloroplast movement are induced by red light as well as blue.
novel
The presence of such a hybrid photoreceptor is proposed to enhance light sensitivity and aid the prevalence of species such as ferns in low light conditions
Hypoxia, or oxygen depletion, is an environmental phenomenon where the concentration
of dissolved oxygen in the water column decreases to a level that can no longer support
living aquatic organisms.
Hypoxic and anoxic (no oxygen) waters have existed
throughout geologic time, but their occurrence in shallow coastal and estuarine areas
appears to be increasing as a result of human activities (Diaz and Rosenberg, 1995).
The largest hypoxic zone currently affecting the United States, and the second largest
hypoxic zone worldwide, occurs in the northern Gulf of Mexico adjacent to the Mississippi
River on the Louisiana/Texas continental shelf.
What causes hypoxia?
Major events leading to the formation of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico include:
Freshwater discharge and nutrient loading of the Mississippi River
Nutrient-enhanced primary production, or eutrophication
Decomposition of biomass by bacteria on the ocean floor
Depletion of oxygen due to stratification
Mississippi River nutrient concentrations and loading to the adjacent continental shelf
have greatly changed in the last half of the 20th century. During this time there has been
a marked increase in the concentration of nitrogen and phosphorous in the Lower Mississippi
River. This increase has been attributed to the increased use of nitrogen and phosphorous
fertilizers,
Eutrophication
eutrophication initiates a massive growth of phytoplankton
on the water’s surface.
This stratification leaves
the bottom layer isolated from the surface layer and cut off from a normal resupply of oxygen
from the atmosphere.
Hypoxia was first documented in the northern Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast in 1972.