Tuesday, December 09, 2008

How Potassium helps minimize stress due to waterlogging ?

How Potassium helps minimize stress due to waterlogging ?Some times, heavy rains after prolonged dry spells creates water logging and making crops suffer either due to lodging or due to poor aeration.
K fertilization helps building cellulose thereby giving sturdiness to plant stems. This helps prevent lodging.
Poor drainage under water logged conditions can reduce soil aeration. This situation make roots starved for oxygen. For optimum growth plant roots require a proper balance (ratio) between solid (mineral & organic ), liquid (water) and gaseous (air) phases in the soil. For most plants, this ratio by volume is about 50:20:30, respectively. If oxygen is lacking, root respiration is affected resulting in reduced K uptake. Where there is a risk of lack of oxygen, K fertilization helps improve plant health.

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