K/Na Transport

Why is potassium important for plants?

The mineral potassium (K) is the major inorganic osmoticum in all plants and is especially important under saline conditions. Plants are remarkably poor at ‘mining’ K from soils. Thus, K limitation has a direct impact on the use of marginal lands for crop growth. Increasingly, K is limiting in many otherwise ‘fertile’ areas around the world. Parts of Australia, Southeast Asia and China, and the United States are now dependent on mineral K fertilization [see Rengel and Damon (2008) Phys. Plant. 133,624] and must face the recent steep rises in the cost of K fertilizers. In the UK, over 50% of arable crop lands are now dressed with K each year. K depletion is set to become of even greater importance, for example as agricultural byproducts that normally recycle K are diverted to biofuel production rather than tilled back into the soil.

Is plant potassium nutrition relevant to human health?

Our intake of K – especially from agricultural produce – has recently been recognised as an important factor in reducing hypertension, coronary disease and mortality. Reduced K in the diet has been linked also to diabetes and renal disease. A number of studies over the past decade have highlighted the health advantages of increasing K intake in human nutrition [cf. Appel et al. (1997) N.England J.Med. 336,1117; He et al. (2006) Lancet 367,320; He and MacGregor (2008) Phys. Plant. 133,725]. So, understanding and improving crop K nutrition feeds back (quite literally!) to human health.

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