ELEMENT CONCENTRATIONS AND INTERELEMENT RELATIONS IN APPLE LEAVES, BLOSSOM LEAVES AND FRUITS AND ADJACENT SURFACE SOILS

Abstract

Within this work, leaves, blossom leaves and fruits from apple trees together with respective topsoils were sampled at non-contaminated sites in the East of Austria, in order to find interelement relations within the same plant, as well with total contents and mobile fractions of adjacent surface soils. Aging of green leaves lowered total N, and increased Al, Si, Ca, Sr, Ba, Li and the Rare Earths vice-versa. Increased nutrient supply tended to increase the physiologically more important elements in the leaves, and decreased the Rare Earths. The composition of blossom leaves was largely independent from the corresponding leaves and fruits. In the fruits, only B and Mo correlated with some more elements in the blossom leaves, and vice-versa the nitrogen in the blossom leaves with Al, Fe, Na, and Rb in the fruits. There was no carry-over of Ce- and Eu- anomalies found in the adjacent soils. Presumable acid contents and harvesting period may lead to different leaf/fruit element proportions. Varieties of different expectable acid contents, period of harvest, and period of flowering, might show differences among interelement effects.