Spectacular speckles: silicon only disguises the signs of manganese toxicity in sunflowers and soybeans
Silicon is essential for string plants, but new research reveals that it can also hide evidence of poisoning in plants.
Plant Science from Cell Biology to Ecosystems
Silicon is essential for string plants, but new research reveals that it can also hide evidence of poisoning in plants.
For sunflowers a friend is not someone you can lean on – as Nigel Chaffey finds out.
When you look at a sunflower you see gold. When an insect looks at a sunflower it sees something quite different.
This study highlights the potential importance of the combined thickness of the cuticle and epidermal cell wall in the absorption of foliar-applied nutrients.
There’s been advances in knowing how sunflowers track the sun, but botanists are still arguing over why. And, to make things confusing, they could all be right.
The shade avoidance response, which may optimize CO2-assimilation, appears to be the ‘driving force’ behind these conspicuous plant movements.
Could members of the daisy family, dandelions and lettuces, hold the key to future rubber self-sufficiency?