Plant Nutrition

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Have you ever wondered or think of what a plant requires to grow up healthy and strong? Well, just like us, they do need their food. However In this my participation in a Contest Organised by @muhammad-ahmad, entitled;Plant Nutrition,we will go through the critical nutrients that a plant requires, the deficiency caused due to its insufficiency, and why Nitrogen is important in plants. Let's begin!

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Normally, plants needs many let just say a lot of nutrient elements to grow very strong, healthy and matured. These nutrients am taking about are usually summarized into two groups: macronutrients and micronutrients.

Macronutrients are those nutrients which plants require in relatively large quantities. These include:

• Nitrogen (N): This promotes general growth and greening of leaves.
• Phosphorus (P): This is needed for healthy roots and flowers.
• Potassium (K): This keeps plants robust to resist disease.
• Calcium (Ca): This element is used for building cell walls.

• Magnesium (Mg): It is used for photosynthesis.
• Sulfur (S): Manufactures proteins.

Then Micronutrients are those set of nutrients that plants require in a small amounts. These include the following:

• Iron (Fe): Helps in chlorophyll manufacture.
• Manganese (Mn): Needed by enzymes
• Zinc (Zn): Participates in the synthesis of growth regulators
• Copper (Cu): Involved in reproduction.
• Boron (B): Cell wall constituent.
• Molybdenum (Mo): Helps in nitrogen use.
• Chlorine (Cl): this element enables the plant to maintain the balance of water within the different plant cells.

The macro and micro belong to a class where, due to the prime significance in making plants grow excellently, both are held at utmost priority, which means plants can never reach their fullest potential without them.

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All the deficiencies of nutrients due to their vital functions have seriously affected plants pertaining to reduction against their non-availability or insufficient consumption.

• Nitrogen deficiency: In plants depicts yellow leaves, poor growth. Nitrogen makes the biggest portion of chlorophyll, which plants use during the manufacture of food from sunlight. When nitrogen is inadequate, plants cannot make sufficient food; hence, poor growth and low yields are realized.

• Phosphorus Deficiency: Leaves of the plants suffering from deficiency in phosphorus slowly go dark green to purple along with weakened roots. In another word, the term "Phosphorus" means the roots and energy developments. Based on the unavailability of sufficient quantities of phosphorous, the plants will lack healthy roots' growth, which could hamper its ability of absorption in water and nutrition in a proper manner.

• Potassium deficiency: the general symptoms in a plant that lacks potassium are yellow leaves with brown edges; the plant also contains weak stems. Potassium makes plants resistant to disease and other stresses. Therefore, whenever it is poorly available, susceptibility increases leading to low yields.This deficiency will make the plants twist or stunt the growth of the plant, mainly the new leaves and roots.

• Calcium deficiency: It provides cell walls to plants. This is the nutrient without which development and yield is low in case of a plant not developing well.

• Magnesium Deficiency: The Leaves will be very yellowish between the veins if the plant is deficient in magnesium. Magnesium is among the part of chlorophyll molecule. Without adequate magnesium, plants are unable to produce enough and good food. Plants will show poor growth and low yields.And this will not favour us.

• Sulfur Deficiency: It is characterized by yellow foliage and stunted growth when there is insufficient supply of this element. Sulfur gives rise to the formation of proteins. Those plants, which are not capable of developing the proteins essential for plant growth, are the ones under a deficiency of sulfur. Thus, they depict slow growth and yield of the products from plants becomes lesser.

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Nitrogen is one of the most important elements that plant requires to grow,and this element is very useful in many ways as follows;

• Photosynthesis: Nitrogen is among the part of chlorophyll. Plants that have a deficiency of nitrogen cannot make enough of the pigment chlorophyll and this will make to produce less food and a poorly grow. It forms a major part of amino acids making up the proteins. These proteins are very important for growth and the repair mechanism of the plant tissues. As soon as the nitrogen levels in the soil have dropped below the range where it is usable to the plant, it can't manufacture these kinds of proteins. That is why such plants never develop and grow well.

• Growth and Development: Nitrogen also participates in nucleic acid synthesis, taking part in cell division and growth generally. Inadequate nitrogen leads to very poor development within the plants.

• Overall Health: Nitrogen contributes to healthy growth in a plant through enhancing a plant's fighting potential against diseases and resisting stress; all these result in overall better health and higher return of crops.

In all,the knowledge of micronutrients and macronutrients will be helpful in developing healthy and productive plants by detecting deficiencies of nutrients, hence enabling one to know how nitrogen helps in building plants. This shall ensure maximum delivery of nutrients for better yields of crops and a healthy garden or farm. Happy gardening dear friends!

Cc;
@muhammad-ahmad