With the optimal pH found, can I screen the part (root, shoot or leaf) by just subjecting it to the metal solution (fixed conc.) at optimum pH for a particular time period? Or is time studies required?
It depends on what you are screening for: tolerance to high concentrations of metals in the substrate (toxicity tolerance), or the ability to efficiently gain essential metals from an almost negligible background (a "deficient" substrate).
When you write optimal pH, is that for availability of the element under normal circumstances, or overall growth (biomass accumulation) of the plant? The optimal pH for different metals availability can vary quite significantly, so what suits Zn acquisition in your soil for example, may not benefit Fe.
What sort of plant are you growing? If it is a short lived or annual plant, you might be safe to measure just once, but again it depends on what sort of uptake (deficiency or toxicity) you are interested. If it is a perennial, you will have to consider seasonal variations like slower winter growth, or water deficits affecting nutrient uptake in summer.
You may find it beneficial to screen your plants at several concentrations of the element, with more than one time point (preflowering, seed formation, or whatever suits your species), and perhaps different growing conditions. There is no single best solution, it will depend on your project.
You can use any seedling under controlled condition but RT PCR is already a standard procedure. Senta Heiss et al. produced a seminal paper about with refs. http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/54/389/1833.full.pdf. Stress and relief intensity, species, and type of metal can gebnerate a lot of different reactions.
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