RE: [compost_tea] chelate question for the chemists out there

From: TaChung Huang <tachung_h_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 04:34:28 +0800

Elaine:
Would humic or fulvic acid be a more original chelating agent?
 
 



Regards
TaChung Huang (¶À¤j©¾)

-----Original Message-----
From: soilfoodweb_at_aol.com [mailto:soilfoodweb_at_aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 1:44 PM
To: compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [compost_tea] chelate question for the chemists out there


Hi Paulette -

Phew! Do you have time for a course in plant physiology? I'll will try
to give you a short course, but please get a plant physiology textbook,
or even better, call your local college or University plant physiology
instructor, and get the expanded version of these answers, if you are
interested. My knowledge is limited when it comes to the insides of
plants, plasnt strucutres, etc. But I'm pretty good at cellular
metabolism questions, but I don't know everything.

> I was thinking about all this in terms of applying a chelated product
such as chelated iron to a plant. The chelation process would have
occured at the manufacturer's lab before I got the product. Many
chelated iron products use EDTA but I've also seen lignin as the
chelating agent.

Check whether the chelated material you want to apply is approved for
use by organic growers. Check with an organic-certification group like
the Organic Growers of WA, or OMRI, or IFOAM, for example. The
synthetic chelated compounds that Thomas was talking about may leave
not-particularly wonderful residues in the plant. At least with the
organic-approved chelated minerals, the plant has enzymes and
waste-removal mechanisms to deal with the chelating material once the
mineral is released from the mineral within the plant.

All a chelation step does is neutralize charge, essentially, so the
plant can move the mineral through the cell membrane and cell wall.
>
> I was under the impression that beneficial microbes were required to
separate the chelated molecule BEFORE it actually went inside the plant.


I am not aware of this step as a BEFORE step. In fact, I don't think
cleavage could happen BEFORE moving across the cell membrane. Without
hte chelating agent, the material would not cross the membrane.

Microbes do much of the work of chelating mineral elements. Bacteria
and fungi need chelated minerals in order to move them into their cells.
So bacteria and fungi do alot of chelation of charged materials.

It's why I always have to sigh and roll my eyes heavenward when
scientists talk about soil around roots of plants becoming acidified
when nitrate is taken up. Only happens in sick plant root systems,
otherwise there are all these healthy microbes just itching to get those
"extra" hydrogen ions.....

> Apparently this is not so. Apparently, the chelated molecule goes
into the plant intact.

The microbes chelate minerals before the passage through a membrane can
happen. Often the microbes provide the proteins or amino acid molecules
to do the process of chelation, as well as doing the work to chelate.

> What happens to the chelated molecule AFTER it goes into the plant?

The plant has enzymes that remove the protein, amino acid, or other
neutralizing elements so the mineral can be put where it is needed in
the cellular machinery.

> Can the plant utilize the chelated molecule intact?

Probably, but usually the carbon atoms and the mineral atom are needed
in two different places, so there is no requirement for them to stay
together.

> Are there beneficial microbes inside the plant that separate the
chelated molecule (ex. into EDTA and iron) so the plant can use it?

The plant has enzymes it makes itself, inside the cells, which do the
work here.

> Are there other biological processes that go on inside of the plant
that break apart the chelated molecule so the plant can use it?

Yes.

> What happens to the chelation material (ETDA, lignin, etc.)
> after the plant utilizes the metal molecule?

Lignin has to be broken down through enzymatic cleavage. But lignin is
a nasty compound, and the plant usualy just spits it back out.
Synthetic chelators probably are just spit out as well. Amino acids and
proteins are used in cellular synthesis.

OK?

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
www.soilfoodweb.com


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Received on Thu May 29 2003 - 00:45:37 EDT

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