What Is a Plant Nutrient?

Patrick Brown is a professor of Plant Sciences in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Brown’s research focuses on function and transport of nutrients in plants and the management of nutrients in agricultural ecosystems. Dr. Brown is a highly cited researcher whose contributions include the identification of nickel as an essential element for plants, critical contributions to the understanding of the function, uptake and transport of boron in plants, identification of mechanisms of plant tolerance to heavy metals in the environment and on the mechanisms of action of foliar fertilizers.

Katja Hora is Research Manager of Specialty Plant Nutrition at IFA member SQM. Dr. Hora joined SQM’s global development team in 2014 to gather and exchange knowledge on potassium nitrate for fertigation, foliar, and field applications. She works on programs including potassium nitrate for maximum crop yield and quality - compared to sulphate or chloride containing K-sources - to grow crops with less water, prevent salinity stress and optimizing nitrate to ammonium ratios. Dr. Hora has a PhD in evolutionary biology from the University of Amsterdam.