CONTROL OF PH AT THE SOIL-ROOT INTERFACE

A method to control the rhizosphere pH of plants under controlled nutritional conditions is suggested. An earlier developed method for plant growth in soilless culture according to the principle of regeneration and pH control by adjusting the percentage of total N supplied as NH4-N in the maintenance solution was applied to control rhizosphere pH in connection with a recently developed plant-growing technique. Using this technique, thin soil layers (0.2 mm) at different proximity to a root mat can be sliced from a soil column and analyzed. Results show a high predictive values with respect to pH profiles in the soil and demonstrate that nutrition of the rape plants was kept equal when rhizosphere pH decreased by 1.2 units, and was kept constant or was increased by 0.4 units by varying the percentage of total N supplied as NH4-N (15, 6 or 0) in the nutrient solutions via wicks and not via the soil column. The method thus offers new possibilities in rhizosphere studies, as control of pH in the rhizosphere of plants under equal nutritional conditions has been a problem for a long time.