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Question 76 of 127

Q.The radio-isotope used in agriculture is :

(a) 15P31{}_{15}P^{31}
(b) 15P32{}_{15}P^{32}
(c) 11Na23{}_{11}Na^{23}
(d) 11Na24{}_{11}Na^{24}
Tamil Nadu DgeTamil Nadu HSC (DGE) Board 2017MCQ· 1mImportance★★★★★
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Phosphorus-32 is the radioisotope classically used as an agricultural tracer, to follow phosphate fertiliser uptake in plants.

Radioisotopes are widely used as 'tracers' in agriculture, medicine, and industry, exploiting the fact that a radioactive isotope of an element behaves chemically identically to its stable counterpart but can be tracked by detecting the radiation it emits, even in extremely small (trace) quantities. In agriculture, one of the most important and long-standing applications is the use of 1532^{32}_{15}P (phosphorus-32), a β−\beta^--emitting isotope with a half-life of about 14.3 days, to study how plants absorb phosphate from fertilisers, how phosphorus moves through the plant (from roots to leaves and other tissues), and how efficiently different fertiliser formulations or application methods deliver phosphorus to crops — since phosphorus is one of the essential macronutrients for plant growth.

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