[Jay Patel]

Jay Patel  asked the Naked Scientists:

I am a avid student that has to do a independent study project for my environmental science club and I was wondering if you could help me out with a question i had in mind.

Is there a certain limit of fertilizer a plant such as grass can take in and would it cell membrane take in too much fertilizer (overflow/breach) when it's just trying to get a little bit to supply itself?

A environmentally concerned student,
Jay Patel

What do you think?

[chris]

You can definitely poison plants by overfeeding them.

This is particularly the case with plants that have evolved to grow in very nutrient-poor environments and therefore have very efficient scavenging systems to obtain the trace elements they require. If you come along and fertilise one of those it can be a case of death by excess...