A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SAND AND SOLUTION 
CULTURES OF MARQUIS WHEAT 
A. L. Bakke and L. W. Erdman 
(Received for publication March 27, 1922) 
The present study, in which a comparison is made of the growth of 
Marquis wheat in sand and solution cultures, represents one of several 
experiments involving solution III of the National Research Council series 
which are now in progress in the plant-physiology laboratory at Iowa 
State College. 
Most investigators attempting to determine the salt requirements of 
higher plants have used water cultures. Tottingham (25) placed the whole 
proposition on a definite quantitative basis. He took the well-known 
Knop’s solution, and, by varying the proportions of salts under definite 
volume-molecular partial concentrations, procured a superior yield of wheat 
of II percent over the original solution. 
Shive (19) followed the plan suggested by Tottingham 1 and, making 
use of a three-salt solution containing mono-potassium phosphate, calcium 
nitrate, and magnesium sulphate, obtained an increase in yield of wheat of 
27 percent over Tottingham’s solution of the same total concentration. 
McCall (10) used Shive’s solution and grew wheat in sand cultures. He 
noted that the average dry weights of both tops and roots were decidedly 
greater for the plants grown in sand than for those grown in the solution 
cultures. Incidentally there was a marked difference between the solutions 
producing the highest yield of plants in sand and those giving the best 
growth in Shive’s cultures. 
Livingston and Tottingham (8) made a preliminary test of a series of 
type III solutions, containing the three component salts KNO3, Ca(H 2 P0 4 )2, 
and MgS0 4 . Their results showed that the solution IIIR6C1 was appar¬ 
ently just as good as Shive’s best IR5C2 solution. However, this experi¬ 
ment lasted only 18 days. 
Shive (20) and Shive and Martin (22) studied the salt requirements of 
young and of mature buckwheat plants in both solution and sand cultures. 
They found that the solution yielding the maximum weight of tops during 
the early developmental period, and the solution that gave the highest yield 
of tops and of roots during the late period of development, were identical 
for both the solution and the sand cultures, but the actual dry weight of 
1 Tottingham (25) has presented an extensive review of literature covering the subject 
of solution cultures. For citations see pages 242-245. 
18 
