Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I have a student who wants to test the hypothesis if iron is added to soil plants will absorb the iron and be more helpful. How do we test for iron in plants?

Diane Calderon

Hi Diane,

I think this is an interesting question. Although it is possible, it is not that straight forward to test for Iron in plants directly. One approach may be to look for the effects of iron on the plants. For example, the yellowing of leaves is one result of iron deficiency in plants. If you were to take a plant in this condition and add iron to the soil, you should be able to observe the leaves becoming green again.

Mike

Hi,

I think you will find this paper to be extremely helpful in measuring how to test iron uptake by plants and humans:

http://bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.o ... t/33/3/430

Here is another interesting paper on how grasses (grains) increase their uptake of iron:

http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/reprint/80/1/175

http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/2 ... 224207.php

Here is news about inulin increasing absorbabability of iron by the gut:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/j ... in0108.pdf

These may be of interest:

http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/conte ... t/23/4/941

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ba-1977-0162.ch005

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 7-0087.pdf

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... 2bf121f5e5

http://www.aptdc.com/JST%20Iron%20defic ... nology.pdf

This is going to be a challenging study, as the plants dynamically regulate their iron uptake based on the availability of iron in the soil, and humans absorb iron in ways that depend on the total diet. Also the ways of studying this problem seem to depend heavily on the use of radioactive tracers (Fe59), which may be a challenge to do in the context of a science fair project. The topic does seem to be of global importance and interest, as iron deficiency seems to be a world wide problem.

I wish you and your student every success in this research!

Best regards,

Barrett L. Tomlinson