How many plant micronutrients are there?
Although Wikipedia's list of
micronutrients just includes the generally accepted "little eight", I
keep
stumbling across other micronutrients which are important. For
example, a deficiency of magnesium in the
soil makes it hard for plants to use calcium, which in turn can lead to
blossom end rot in tomatoes. Magnesium can be easily washed out
of the upper layer of soil
by rain or watering, only to be returned when leaves from deep-rooted
plants (like trees) are added back to the ground.
After extensive web
browsing, I've add these additional micronutrients to the little eight:
- Sodium
- Iodine
- Fluorine
- Silicon
- Sulfur
- Magnesium
- Calcium
Given that the most
recent of the little eight micronutrients was found
to have an effect on plants only about twenty years ago, I wouldn't be
surprised if we come up with more micronutrients which affect plants.
| This post is part of our Micronutrient lunchtime series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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