The respiration in leaf disks from younger taro plants under a moderate potassium deficiency

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Abstract
It has been reported that there is a considerable difference in the response of leaves and roots to K-deficiency (1), which may be due to the difference in the severity of the deficiency in the two tissues under the same K-application (2). The previous work (3) suggested that the metabolic disturbance induced by K-deficiency might depress preferentially the metabolism in roots rather than that in leaves. Another work with taro leaves in the later growth stage (4) suggested that any indirect metabolic disturbance caused by an extended K-deficiency might result in a depressed operation of the TCA cycle. The bleeding experiments with taro plants in the earlier growth stage (5) showed that arseniteand DNP-treatment in vivo with the roots, both reduced significantly the release rate of nitrogenous constituents and water with bleeding sap. Based on these informations, the growth and the respiration of leaves under a moderate K-deficiency were re-examined with younger taro plants in an attempt to compare them with those of the roots (4). At the conclusion of a series of studies on the nutritional physiology of taro plants, effects of Kdeficiency on the metabolic activities of the plants are discussed in special relation to the mitochondrial respiration.