Effects of Potassium Nutrition on Growth and Cation Content of Potato Leaves and Tubers Relative to Plant Analysis1

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Abstract
Potato plants were grown outdoors in pots containing Alvolite, a low K material, under low and high K conditions. The blades of recently matured leaves were relatively constant in K concentration, whereas the petioles changed rapidly with growth and K supply. Sodium was largely excluded from the leaf tissue while Ca and Mg were higher with low K supply. Tubers under high and low K nutrition changed only from about 2.0 to 1.3% K, respectively, and the values of Na, Ca, and Mg were very low, ranging from only 0.06 to 0.30%. Therefore, an analysis of tubers is not useful in plant analysis. The degree of K deficiency can be estimated by following the rate of K decline in reference to the K critical level of 2.3% for the petiole and 1.1% for the blade tissues as illustrated by present results and of a field experiment.

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