MICRONUTRIENTS - THEIR FUNCTION IN METABOLISM - NITRATE REDUCTION PROCESS - ROLE OF MOLYBDENUM
The nitrate reduction process is complicated and only partially understood. The plant takes up some of the ammonium (NH4+) form of nitrogen, but most of its N supply enters as the nitrate (NO3-) form.
Nitrate reductase, powered by molybdenum, puts the nitrate nitrogen (NO3-) through a series of steps which removes the oxygen. The final product, ammonia, is then further combined with sugar to form the various amino acids – the building blocks of proteins.
Amino acids are comprised mainly of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Some also contain sulphur and phosphorus. More than twenty have been identified, and they combine in different ways to form proteins, the principal organic substances found in living cells.
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NH4+
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+
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Sugar
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--->
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Amino
Acids
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Your liquid nitrogen fertilizer is a combination of ammonium and nitrate forms of nitrogen. Therefore, you get the advantages of direct uptake of ammonium, which moves directly to the amino acid system, plus nitrate to enhance or push the respiration process along. This accounts for the quick "green-up" affect noted when liquid nitrogen is used.
In building and storing energy in the plant system, the first step is to unite various sugars systematically with oxygen in what is known as respiration. This combination releases electrons or negative particles of energy, which we'll examine further when we study the role of iron in the plant. This energy is transferred through complicated forms of phosphorus, and is made available for plant activity in the same way that human musles use energy.
Niacin is one of the ingredients in the plant's energy carrier, and because it cannot be formed without molybdenum, we see how important molybdenum is to plant life and growth.
One of the amino acids, tryptophane, can be acted on by an enzyme to produce the vitamin niacin. Let's look over in the next laboratory to see how niacin is utilized in the making of an important energy carrier in the plant system.
Diphosphopyridine Nucleotide, or DPN, is an energy carrier. It is a product of active ammonia formation in plants, and DPN enters into almost every energy-conveying process in the plants' metabolism. So we see how important molybdenum is to plant life and growth.
Now let's look at copper and its role in protein production.
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