Generations of soil science have yielded knowledge of how to test nutrient levels in soil, how plants take them up and how best to replace those nutrients after harvest. Each of these fundamental nutrients plays a key role in plant nutrition. Nitrogen is considered to be the most important nutrient, and plants absorb more nitrogen than any other element. Below is a picture of corn that is nitrogen deficient.
Phosphorus in commercial fertilizers comes from phosphate rock. In order for a plant to grow and thrive, it needs a number of different chemical elements. The most important are:. The most important of these the ones that are needed in the largest quantity by a plant are nitrogen , phosphorus and potassium. Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are important because they are necessary for these basic building blocks.
For example:. Without nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, the plant simply cannot grow because it cannot make the pieces it needs. It's like a car factory running out of steel or a road crew running out of asphalt. If any of the macronutrients are missing or hard to obtain from the soil, this will limit the growth rate for the plant. In nature, the nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium often come from the decay of plants that have died.
In the case of nitrogen, the recycling of nitrogen from dead to living plants is often the only source of nitrogen in the soil. To make plants grow faster, what you need to do is supply the elements that the plants need in readily available forms. That is the goal of fertilizer. It also increases the speed at which it will grow and improves the quality and appearance of the foliage. You will probably have seen its effects in dramatic before and after photos comparing the use of plant additives to not.
Phosphorus helps the plants produce all of that nice organic stuff like oils and starch which is great for forming large, strong root systems. Phosphorus also helps the plant to develop Chlorophyll, which allows it to turn solar energy into chemical energy photosynthesis. Combined with Potassium, Phosphorus helps produce healthy flowers and fruits in abundance.
Lastly, Potassium helps to build protein, fight off diseases and, just like Phosphorus, is essential in the process of photosynthesis. All of the above are required to work together to produce a good healthy plant, if just one of these valuable nutrients are missing or lacking your plant will struggle to produce fruits or flowers of the highest quality.
Adding a fertiliser is a way of giving nature a helping hand. Natural and man-made fertilisers can contain a variety of ingredients, but here are a few of the most important ones for plants in addition to the standard Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium as described above: Zinc, Magnesium, Calcium, Sulphur and Iron.
You can also get fertilisers that are fit for the purpose of a specific plant or species. These are important as different plants, like Camellias for example, require a careful balance of certain nutrients.
If a general purpose fertiliser is used it may not provide all the valuable nutrients this type of plant requires. There are two types of fertilser, those that are derived organically from plants and animals , which include. These types of organic fertilisers are made up from big molecules, so it takes a long time for soil organisms to break them down, in order for them to be easily absorbed by plant roots. The second is the inorganic fertilisers that are made from synthetic natural plant materials or natural chemicals that are mined, such as:.
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