DETERMINATION OF MINERAL COMPOSITION IN THE ALFALFA (Medicago sativa L.) COLLECTED FROM DIFFERENT REGIONS IN THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA

Abstract

One of the most important processes in the growth and development of plants is the physiology of mineral nutrition. Plants, respectively in our research alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) as a primary forage crop, typically absorbs nutrients through the plant root from the soil, and can also absorb nutrients through the leaf by foliar feeding. Both micronutrients and macronutrients are naturally obtained by the root from the soil. Their presence in plants is different and depends on a series of internal and external factors. The nutrients that the plants need for growth and development are divided into mineral and organic. The plants absorb the mineral nutrients that originate from the soil minerals in a mineral form.

All the elements found in the plants are not essential for them, since the mechanism of the plants for ion uptake is not entirely selective, plants through the root system, under certain conditions, obtain all the available elements that are found in the nutrient environment, in a smaller or larger quantity.

Frequently, a division according to which elements are divided into necessary (biogenic) or better known as essential elements, which are divided into macro and microelements, useful (beneficial) and other elements, is applied.

In this paper the results of the research for determining the mineral composition of the examined fodder crop of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) are presented, of which one part are essential elements, and one part are useful elements in three regions, in three slopes in the Republic of North Macedonia.