Summary
In two field experiments sown in 1982 to test the effect of vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizas (VAM) on growth and phosphorus nutrition of (i) spring wheat and spring barley, (ii) winter wheat and winter barley, we measured the concentrations of the major cation (K+, Ca2+, Mg2+ and Na+) and anions (Cl−, SO4 2−, H2PO4 − and NO3 −) in shoot tissue. In all cases the sum of the anion concentrations (ΣA) was increased strongly by mycorrhizal infection but not by P additions, confirming earlier observations2 on spring wheat. The concentration of total cations (ΣA) was generally reduced by P additions, hence P and VAM both reduced the cation excess (ΣC−ΣA) but by different mechanisms.
These results suggest that increased uptake of anions by plants with VAM may be a general phenomenom which would have important implications for the elemental composition of crops. The effect may also be manifested by other types of mycorrhizal association.
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Buwalda, J.G., Stribley, D.P. & Tinker, P.B. Increased uptake of anions by plants with vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizas. Plant Soil 71, 463–467 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02182687
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02182687