General Nature of the Process of Salt Accumulation by Roots With Description of Experimental Methods

The discussion in this paper is based on the assumption that the reader is familiar with earlier work on Yalonia, Nitella, and Chara cells (3, 5, 15-17, 23-25, 42), and with the series of recent reports by Steward (32-36) and his co-workers (2, 37-40) on accumulation of salts by storage tissues. These latter researches yielded clear evidence that salt accumulation (movement of cations and anions into the vacuole against concentration gradients) by storage tissues is dependent upon the metabolic activities of living cells, reflected in aerobic respiration. It was concluded that capacity for maintained salt accumulation by these tissues is associated with a state of intense cell metabolism characteristic of cell growth and cell division. The problem now to be discussed is that of salt accumulation by roots with particular reference to metabolic processes. This problem has special significance for students of soil and plant interrelations, and at the same time has broad ramifications in the field of general physiology. One of the most fundamental of cell functions is involved.