Studies in the Diagnosis of Mineral Deficiency: V. Manganese Deficiency in Wheat

Abstract

With z Text-figures)At fourteen sites where winter wheat was growing commercially, twelve of which were known or suspected to be deficient in manganese, a spray of manganese sulphate was applied late in the shooting stage of development, and the effect on yield of grain estimated. Samples of certain organs of unsprayed wheat plants were gathered on three occasions between tillering and ear emergence, and samples of weed leaves on the same occasions and after harvest ; these samples were analysed spectrographically for manganese.The results indicate that analysis of the wheat plant can be used to forecast its response to a manganese sulphate spray, and the following tentative limiting values for manganese content are put forward, above which no increase in grain yield as a result of treatment may be expected: (a) during tillering, 34 p,p.m. manganese in dry matter of lower leaf blades; (b) just prior to ear emergence, 36 p.p.m. manganese in dry matter of stems. The highest correlation obtained between response and manganese content was that with the values for stem samples gathered just prior to ear emergence.Analysis of weed samples can only be expected to indicate gross differences in the manganese status of different sites. Tokyo, 6, 137-8. 1942-3, pp. 78-81. hypothesis. Proc. roy. SOC. Vict. N.S. 47, 225-61. Agric. Tokyo, 5, 161-72. Tokyo, 5, 46772. Agric. Tokyo, 6, 135-6. tetramethyldiaminodiphenylmethane. Nature, Lond., 157, 696. plants and their spectroscopic diagnosis. IndianJ: agric. Sn'. 16, 103-11. L o n 4 65, 33-9. agricultural crops. Nature , Lond., 157, 696.

Radio-Autographs of Manganese in Plants

“…However, with flax an important difference was noted, in that numerous minute "islands" of manganese occurred in the 'lower portions of the older leaves and stems at the normal level, whereas they were much less prevalent at the excess level. Bertrand and Rosenblatt (1922); Lyon, Beeson, and Ellis (1943 ); and Goodall (1943Goodall ( , 1949 have reported results similar to the above with respect to the existence of a gradient in manganese concentration between the older and younger leaves of plants. Jones and Bullis (1921) and Goodall (1945) have also shown that stems or petioles are much lower in manganese than the leaf lamina.…”

Nutrient Interactions and Deficiency Diagnosis in the Lettuce

“…Few investigators have attempted to establish a quantitative relationship between the response potentialities of plants and their chemical composition (e.g. Pfeiffer, Simmermacher, and Rippel (1919) with oats, van Itallie ( 1935) with grassland, Macy (1936) with barley, Crowther (1937) with cotton, Craig (1940) with sugar-cane, Lundegardh (1941Lundegardh ( , 1943Lundegardh ( , 1951 with oats, and Goodall (1948Goodall ( , 1949 with wheat and barley). In most of these investigations, the material for analysis was collected afteroften many months after -the treatment used to determine the response potentialities of the plants.…”

“…But very little of this work has been more than qualitative; the rapid "tissue tests" (see Nicholas 1953), for instance, have proved valuable in indicating whether plants are likely to respond to a nutrient addition during their development, but they have not been used to estimate the magnitude of these responses except in the broadest categories. It would appear that the only cases in which plant material has been analysed early enough in development for deficiencies still to be remediable, and in which the analyses could be used for quantitative forecasts of response, are in manganese deficiency of wheat (Goodall 1949) and possibly nitrogen deficiency in cotton (Crowther 1937).…”