A study of the available phosphorus status of soils by phosphorus-deficient tomato seedlings

Summary Several important New York soils were evaluated for their phosphorus fertility status in the greenhouse by growing tomato plants and determining the relationship between the anthocyanin content of the plants and their response to added phosphorus. In general, there was an inverse relationship between the anthocyanin content of the leaves and increases in dry weight production when phosphorus only was the limiting factor.It appears that the method presented may have considerable value as a greenhouse technique to evaluate the phosphorus fertility of soils.The problem of evaluating the relationship between the anthocyanin content and phosphorus response when heavy metals interfere remains to be solved. Nevertheless, this technique may be valuable to segregate heavy metal interference from phosphorus deficiency.Soil Conservation Officer, Orissa, Cuttack-1, India.