Effects of Calcium Deficiency Upon the Roots of Pisum Sativum

Abstract

Solution without calciumFe (as FeS04) was added as needed by the plants.plant. The plants were g-rown in solutions of highly purified salts. A detailed description of the methods employed, as well as of the purification of the salts is given elsewhere (Sommer and Sorokin, 1928). All water was redistilled from a pyrex glass still. The following solutions were employed in this series of experiments:Calcium sulfate in amounts to give calcium concentrations of 0.06, 0.125 and 0.25 parts per million was added to cultures on which the studv of the effects of small amounts of calcium was to be made.The plants, each treatment in triplicate, were grown in 2-liter pyrex beakers. In a preliminary experiment two out of twenty beakers were discarded because plants grown in them without the addition of calcium consistently produced more root growth than plants grown in the other beakers under the same conditions. Specially constructed fitted wooden covers were coated with paraffin and the seedlings, four to each beaker, were set out through cotton plug-ged openings. The beakers were set in galvanized iron tanks filled with water, which came to within about an inch of the top of the beakers. Water

Ionic Effects on Lignification and Peroxidase in Tissue Cultures

“…The lignification of these tissues was promoted by low levels, and inhibited by high levels, of calcium in the medium. A similar effect of low calcium levels on lignification is suggested by earlier reports on the growth of intact plants in calcium-deficient solutions (14)(15)(16)(17).…”

DIFFERENTIAL RESPONSE TO CALCIUM WITHIN THE SPECIES FESTUCA OVINA L.

“…The differential abihty of the two types to root at low calcium is interesting in relation to previous work on differential ability to root in toxic concentrations of heavy metals (Wilkins, 1957;Jowett, 1958). The actual cause of the root stunting is as yet unknown, and it may be the direct result of calcium deficiency, as seems likely in the work of Sorokin and Sommer (1940). However, the symptoms obtained by them were somewhat different from those obtained in the present study and were also found only at levels of calcium below i p.p.m.…”

Calcium and the Control of Lignification in Tissue Cultures

“…These workers also report that the roots of plants grown on calcium-deficient medium were brownish, a symptom they associate commonly with calcium deficiency. Sorokin and Sommer (1940) reported the premature development of tracheal elements on calcium-deficient pea roots. Lyon and Garcia (1944) stated that in tomato stems " ... the supply of calcium ion is clearly correlated with cell size and the thickening of cell walls in collen-chyma and pericycle."…”