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Radioisotopes and the Nutrition of Plants by R. Scott Russell ,
Ph.D.
Director of the Agricultural Research Council
Radiobiological Laboratory
In recent years our understanding of plant nutrition has been greatly increased by the use of radioactive isotopes as tracers.
By adding to soil nutrients that have been ' labelled ' with radioactive isotopes, much has been learned about the ways in which nutrients become available to plants. Equally important new information has been obtained on the nature of the mechanisms whereby plants absorb nutrients and incorporate them, sometimes within fractions of a minute, into some of the complex substances in the plant.