Poster: Mineral nutrition

Abs # 205: The Anionic/Cationic Balance Problem in Mineral Nutrition Studies

Presenter:	Niedz, Randall P., rniedz@ushrl.ars.usda.gov
Authors	Niedz, Randall P. (A)   Evens, T. J. (A)
Affiliations:	(A): U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory
Web Site:	http://www.ushrl.saa.ars.usda.gov/

Designing culture media for mineral nutrition studies is a complicated problem. A primary reason is that in order to change the concentration of a single anion or cation it is generally necessary to change the complementary cat-/anion of the salt complex, thereby making it difficult to devise media that differ only in the concentration of a single ion. Consequently, it often becomes necessary to simultaneously alter both the type and/or concentration of multiple salts to achieve a final set of media that differ only in the concentration of a single ion; when the objective is to alter the concentration of multiple ions the problem’s complexity is increased considerably. The anion/cation balance problem is easily solved by linear programming (LP), a technique of applied mathematics devised specifically for solving a wide range of practical, complex, resource allocation problems such as scheduling, mixing, blending, and routing. The anionic/cationic balance problem, how it is easily solved using LP techniques, and a public domain software program designed for nutrient formulation research will be presented.