Iron, Fe

just.wing.it

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I know there are iron supplements out there.....but can you make your own?

I've read before, about people placing used nails in the bottom of their pots when repotting trees, and the nails are gone 2 years later....

Is it possible to allow some nails to rust in water, making rusty nasty water.....and water your tree with it?

I know rust is an oxide, but will this provide a shot of iron for a plant?

Or is this a bad idea?
 

Schmikah

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I know there are iron supplements out there.....but can you make your own?

I've read before, about people placing used nails in the bottom of their pots when repotting trees, and the nails are gone 2 years later....

Is it possible to allow some nails to rust in water, making rusty nasty water.....and water your tree with it?

I know rust is an oxide, but will this provide a shot of iron for a plant?

Or is this a bad idea?

No. Iron oxide is completely useless to both humans and plants. Iron needs to be chemically available to react in biochemical reactions, which requires a non-oxidized iron atom. That is why chelated iron is used. Basically this is a chemical compound that uses non-ionic bonding that will not allow the iron to be oxidized. Coincidentally, chelated chemicals are normally water soluble, which makes it easier to apply (iron oxide is not fyi, which is another reason it cannot be absorbed by plants as it is a particle).

And yah, if you put a non-galvanized nail in a pot, its gonna disappear in a year or maybe less. The constant humidity and liquid flushing away the iron (III) oxide and other ferric oxides which would protect it from further oxidation will make that thing disappear fast. By no means should you think that it means the nail was absorbed by the plant. It wasn't. It was washed out of the bottom of the pot.
 

just.wing.it

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No. Iron oxide is completely useless to both humans and plants. Iron needs to be chemically available to react in biochemical reactions, which requires a non-oxidized iron atom. That is why chelated iron is used. Basically this is a chemical compound that uses non-ionic bonding that will not allow the iron to be oxidized. Coincidentally, chelated chemicals are normally water soluble, which makes it easier to apply (iron oxide is not fyi, which is another reason it cannot be absorbed by plants as it is a particle).

And yah, if you put a non-galvanized nail in a pot, its gonna disappear in a year or maybe less. The constant humidity and liquid flushing away the iron (III) oxide and other ferric oxides which would protect it from further oxidation will make that thing disappear fast. By no means should you think that it means the nail was absorbed by the plant. It wasn't. It was washed out of the bottom of the pot.
That's what I was always wondering ahout that old tale....
Thank you for your reply!
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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If memory serves me right, humic acid can act as a chelating agent. So does lactate, a product of fermentation.
If you have a liquid fertilizer, there's probably EDTA or that other agent (DDTA? I forgot) in there that can switch ions with the right pH. They have a higher affinity for metals.
Iron can bind to akadama, since the ion exchange capacity of clay tends to work like that.
So adding a rusty nail can have effects due to the soil chemistry, microbial and plant byproducts.
The effect might be small, but it's not totally absent.
 

sorce

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The top of the soil makes sense to me!

Sorce
 

Schmikah

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If memory serves me right, humic acid can act as a chelating agent. So does lactate, a product of fermentation.
If you have a liquid fertilizer, there's probably EDTA or that other agent (DDTA? I forgot) in there that can switch ions with the right pH. They have a higher affinity for metals.
Iron can bind to akadama, since the ion exchange capacity of clay tends to work like that.
So adding a rusty nail can have effects due to the soil chemistry, microbial and plant byproducts.
The effect might be small, but it's not totally absent.

Not true entirely. Since iron (III) oxide is a very tightly bound molecule, the only reliable way to break the chemical bond is with a strong acid. Since the soil pH, even in acid loving plants, is above 5 there is essentially no chance that the ferric oxides will break down. Thus, adding a chelating agent will do nothing as the chelate needs a free iron atom, which as I've stated will not exist as it has been strongly oxidized.

Also, iron will not be biochemically available to normal microbial life in plant soil. Maybe in steam vents on the ocean floor or the chemical pools at yellow stone, but not in a planter.

Putting a nail in the pot won't hurt anything, but you'll just be wasting a nail.
 

sorce

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Throw a hand warmer on top like a tea bag.

Been reading about making glazes with them!😉

Sorce
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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Not true entirely. Since iron (III) oxide is a very tightly bound molecule, the only reliable way to break the chemical bond is with a strong acid. Since the soil pH, even in acid loving plants, is above 5 there is essentially no chance that the ferric oxides will break down. Thus, adding a chelating agent will do nothing as the chelate needs a free iron atom, which as I've stated will not exist as it has been strongly oxidized.

Also, iron will not be biochemically available to normal microbial life in plant soil. Maybe in steam vents on the ocean floor or the chemical pools at yellow stone, but not in a planter.

Putting a nail in the pot won't hurt anything, but you'll just be wasting a nail.

You might want to look into the rhizosphere a bit more. Plant roots can secrete acids which can locally drop the pH to 4 or even lower. That is, in the direct rhizosphere, so the iron oxide has to be close to that too for chelate complexes to form.
Microbial reductors also do exist, they use ferric reductase. To think they haven't spread throughout our cities as opportunists.. That's kind of like telling people city raccoons aren't a real thing because they are woodland animals only. Rust is everywhere, and so is water. Just because we can't grow the microbes in a lab and they screw up sequence reactions, doesn't mean they're not there. I honestly can't think of a way to separate the microbes from collected samples without destroying everything in the process.
I have the same extremophiles in my dishwasher as the ones in some hot springs. How did they get in my dishwasher? And if they can get into my dishwasher, why couldn't they get into planters?

Also the exudates of mycorrhizal fungi can have a pH of 3. Those (sometimes extracellular matrixes) are used to oxidize or reduce stuff and take it up without wasting a lot of tissue. Fungi took over the earth a couple million years ago by literally breaking down rocks, and they still do. How would they get nutrients out of those if they didn't play with the pH?

Here's an article about microbial Fe reductases.
 

Schmikah

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You might want to look into the rhizosphere a bit more. Plant roots can secrete acids which can locally drop the pH to 4 or even lower. That is, in the direct rhizosphere, so the iron oxide has to be close to that too for chelate complexes to form.
Microbial reductors also do exist, they use ferric reductase. To think they haven't spread throughout our cities as opportunists.. That's kind of like telling people city raccoons aren't a real thing because they are woodland animals only. Rust is everywhere, and so is water. Just because we can't grow the microbes in a lab and they screw up sequence reactions, doesn't mean they're not there. I honestly can't think of a way to separate the microbes from collected samples without destroying everything in the process.
I have the same extremophiles in my dishwasher as the ones in some hot springs. How did they get in my dishwasher? And if they can get into my dishwasher, why couldn't they get into planters?

Also the exudates of mycorrhizal fungi can have a pH of 3. Those (sometimes extracellular matrixes) are used to oxidize or reduce stuff and take it up without wasting a lot of tissue. Fungi took over the earth a couple million years ago by literally breaking down rocks, and they still do. How would they get nutrients out of those if they didn't play with the pH?

Here's an article about microbial Fe reductases.


I wasn't thinking of the free iron species. And also wasn't thinking about mycorrhiza. The issue is if you're using an entirely inorganic soil mix and didn't transfer any spores and/or use inorganic fertilizer which dampens fungal growth. In that case :

"In general, the reduction of complexed Fe3+ results in a weak Fe2+-chelate complex allowing for dissociation and release of Fe2+ for transport or cellular incorporation. This chelation mechanism occurs for citrate and also most of the siderophores that are produced by the diverse microbes". (In reference to free Fe3+, that exists naturally in the environment)

Which would be incapable without chelated or free iron. Unfortunately free iron species produced by an oxidizing nail would be relatively small in quantity.

In that case I say you are correct, but it wouldn't do much if anything and chelated iron would be necessary anyway. That being said, if you mixed in oxide powder into a thriving mycorrhiza colony then I guess that would probably work.

Also, thanks for that article. That was enlightening l, little dense thoguh 😅.
 

Forsoothe!

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So, if a person used Humic and or Fulmic acid ~monthly, at moderate to low levels, normal/average organic soils should have plenty/adequate levels of iron available without the extra nails. ?
 

just.wing.it

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So, if a person used Humic and or Fulmic acid ~monthly, at moderate to low levels, normal/average organic soils should have plenty/adequate levels of iron available without the extra nails. ?
I think the fertilizer I use has some iron, but not enough for my Bougie.
I like @Mellow Mullet's idea.....sounds good.
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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The issue is if you're using an entirely inorganic soil mix and didn't transfer any spores and/or use inorganic fertilizer which dampens fungal growth.
I agree on the part of the inorganic fertilizer dampening fungal growth. But you don't have to transfer spores to inorganic soils anymore. There were some bug fixes and huge patches, since a few million years ago, they learned how to fly (or be pressure-propelled at 90mph). A couple million years later they evolved to live inside plant roots. I made a very un-scientific document about it that you can find here: https://www.bonsainut.com/resources/a-quick-look-in-the-rhizosphere-of-pines.35/

I've played around with plants from the field professionally in a laboratory. One of the hardest things to do, was to get rid of the fungi and bacteria living on/in those plants. It's easier to isolate bacteria and fungi from contaminated samples, than it is to isolate plant material from contaminated samples. I know some US labs that still use mercury(II)chloride to do that job. That's a controlled environment. Outdoors it's even harder to get rid of those microbes.
I'm starting to get more and more convinced that a tree in a diverse environment, doesn't need that much inoculation. It doesn't hurt to do so, though.

Last year I added a few wheelbarrows of pine bark to the back yard, and this year I could add 40 species of fungi (that have visible fruiting bodies) to the list of already 35 or so occurring ones. The fly amanita was a nice surprise, since I own a lot of pines and they tend to care for them pretty well. To get them into my pots was a zero-effort thing; they only needed to spread those 10^9 spores a day, times 30 mushrooms.. That's a lot of inoculant!
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Not true entirely. Since iron (III) oxide is a very tightly bound molecule, the only reliable way to break the chemical bond is with a strong acid. Since the soil pH, even in acid loving plants, is above 5 there is essentially no chance that the ferric oxides will break down. Thus, adding a chelating agent will do nothing as the chelate needs a free iron atom, which as I've stated will not exist as it has been strongly oxidized.

Also, iron will not be biochemically available to normal microbial life in plant soil. Maybe in steam vents on the ocean floor or the chemical pools at yellow stone, but not in a planter.

Putting a nail in the pot won't hurt anything, but you'll just be wasting a nail.

I believe @Wires_Guy_wires was referring to adding ALREADY CHELATED IRON, not Iron III. The one he couldn't remember is "iron EDDHA", that is already in chelated form iron.

There is a natural way that iron III oxide can become available. Though the action of mycorrhiza. Fungi can to amazing things. Their role in the symbiotic relationship is transport of difficult to absorb mineral nutrients. You do need healthy mycorrhiza for this to work, but such conditions do occur in bonsai pots, at least occasionally in really healthy bonsai pots.
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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I believe @Wires_Guy_wires was referring to adding ALREADY CHELATED IRON, not Iron III. The one he couldn't remember is "iron EDDHA", that is already in chelated form iron.

There is a natural way that iron III oxide can become available. Though the action of mycorrhiza. Fungi can to amazing things. Their role in the symbiotic relationship is transport of difficult to absorb mineral nutrients. You do need healthy mycorrhiza for this to work, but such conditions do occur in bonsai pots, at least occasionally in really healthy bonsai pots.

I was referring to all iron in all forms. For an organism to thrive, it needs iron in some form or another. The iron cycle would've halted long ago if it was only available in one form, and to one type of organism. I mean, the stuff is out here in oxidizing/oxidized environments, if there weren't any organisms reducing it to Fe2 from Fe3, then life in general wouldn't have gotten that successful. EDDHA was what I was looking for, thanks again Leo!
I'm using chelated micro nutrients, and rusty nails, and bits of alu wire, and lost pieces of copper. And my plants listen to slayer. If my plants would be people, they would've died from metal overdose already.
 
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