What nutrients do plants need to survive? In what quantities?
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Water from the second fish tank enters a holding tank before being piped into the aeration rock beds.
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Question by vsteg1: What nutrients do plants need to survive? In what quantities?
Please be specific. I need to know about nutrients, not sunlight or soil.
If you know anything about nutrients that relates to hydroponics or aquaponics aswell, that would be really helpful too.
Thanks! 😀
What do you think? Answer below!
2 Responses to What nutrients do plants need to survive? In what quantities?
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The macronutrients (need in quantity) are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, iron, magnesium. There is a mnemonic aid to remember these nutrients: C HOPKiNS CaFe, Mg which reads See Hopkins cafe, mighty good! The “i” is to make the word Hopkins pronounced correctly. In addition to the macronutrients there are trace elements needed in parts per million concentration: boron, aluminum, chlorine, copper, zinc, molybdenum.
saffronesque
January 13, 2012 at 11:46 pm
Macronutrients
Nitrogen—the N of N-P-K—is the most important plant nutrient, because it is an essential building block of chlorophyll (the green pigment in leaves) and this nutrient is the most likely one to be deficient. Nitrogen is so often the rate-limiting step in a plants growth they have no natural maximum feedback controls on their nitrogen uptake. Most plants will consume it far beyond their needs in an orgy of greed, throwing off their own metabolism in the process if a liquid form is too available. This is why urine on grass will kill it. The grass is fertilized to death.
Phosphorus, represented by the letter P in the NPK, Phosphorus is usually added in the form of mined phosphate rock, bone meal, or phosphate fertilizers made from them by treatment with sulfuric acid. Phosphorus is essential to the distribution and storage of energy the plant uses for metabolic processes.
Third of the major nutrients is potassium, listed as K (for its Latin name Kalium). Potassium plays a role in water transport but is more important to photosynthesis, it is critical in ATP production so can influence photosynthetic rates.
Secondary nutrients are now given more credit for the health of growing plants: calcium, magnesium, and sulfur. Sulfur is essential in the synthesis of amino acids and proteins that the plant needs. Magnesium is the central element in the molecule of chlorophyll, like iron in hemoglobin.
Calcium is important because of the critical role it plays in the structure of cell walls, especially at the growing tips of both roots and tops.
After this comes the micronutrients: Boron, Chlorine, Copper, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum, and Zinc.
gardengallivant
January 14, 2012 at 12:33 am