Now that you've got me started down this path, here's an interesting twist:
".......in the drier environments, plants preferred nitrate and in the wetter environments they preferred ammonium. Nitrogen uptake preferences were different across different ecosystems (e.g. from drier to wetter environments)
even for the same species. More significantly, our experiments showed that the plant progeny continued to exhibit the same nitrogen preference as the parent plants in the field, even when removed from their native environment and the nitrogen source was changed dramatically. The climatic constraint of nitrogen uptake preference is likely influenced by ammonium/nitrate ratios in the native habitats of the plants."
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...
So, does that mean that, say in daylilies, that the N balance of the parent plants carries over as a preference in their seedlings that may be grown elsewhere??
