The Biosphere Blog

Availability to Plants Boron in soil ranges from 20 to 200 ppm (parts per million), but most of that is unavailable to plants. The boron that is available ranges from 0.4 to 5 ppm, and mostly as the compound boric acid, B(OH)3. Boric acid readily… more »

Fun Fact: Lead gets its chemical symbol Pb from the Latin word for lead: plumbum. Molybdenum gets its chemical symbol Mo from the Ancient Greek word for lead: molybdos (μόλυβδος) as molybdenum ores were confused for lead ores! Availability to Plants… more »

Availability to Plants Copper is found in soil at extremely small concentrations of 5 – 50 ppm (parts per million), and mostly in rock minerals. Copper, as the Cu2+ ion,  binds tightly to organic matter, more so than other micronutrient cations such as… more »

Availability to Plants Zinc is found in very small amounts in soil, usually from 10 – 300 ppm (parts per million), and mostly in rock minerals. The Zn2+ ion can in fact replace Fe2+ and Mg2+ ions in minerals. Zinc can also be found on the exchange sites… more »

Last week’s discussion on iron became very ‘chemical’ very quickly with quite a crash-course on oxidation, reduction and oxidation numbers thrown in out of nowhere! I do appreciate that it would have been heavy going for people without… more »

Just as there are six macronutrients, so are there six micronutrients: iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), boron (B), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), and moybdenum (Mo). Micronutrients are so named as they are needed in smaller amounts than the macronutrients. As they… more »