The Grass Doctor

How does fertilizer help plants?

I have learned that plants only need water, sunlight and carbon dioxcide to make sugar. Which is their food, then how does fertilizer help them grow?

Public Comments

1. Every type of plant needs different nutrients besides the basics, unless you have great compost or soil :) Most of the time they will live anyway, but if you want to boost growth and flowering, fertilizer is the way to go. . . Just make sure you follow the directions, because there can always be too much of a good thing :) I personally like Miracle Grow, because it is hard to mess up, and works really well for a wide variety of plants and trees :)
2. Carbon dioxide is a gas, yes it exist in nature and plants use it with photosynthesis. Fertilizers are compounds given to plants to promote growth; they are usually applied either through the soil, for uptake by plant roots, or by foliar feeding, for uptake through leaves. Fertilizers can be organic or inorganic. These chemical compounds leave lawns, gardens, and soils looking beautiful as they are given different essential nutrients that encourage plant growth. Though nitrogen is plentiful in the earth's atmosphere, relatively few plants engage in nitrogen fixation Most plants thus require nitrogen compounds to be present in the soil in which they grow, thus fertilizers are used.
3. we all learnt the basics in school about photosynthesis but until you learn about plants in depth you also learn about the extras plants need.most fertilisers like miracle grow or thrive have a high nitrogen content which produce alot of leaf growth.normal leaching of soils from rain or consistant watering can deplete the soil of trace elements like copper,iron ,magnesium.these elements are the ones that make your leaves healthy and green.ever seen plants with yellowing of their leaves?this is usually a sign of iron or magnesium difficiency.plants cant make these elements so we give them a helping hand.only very few plants have a bacteria that can help with phosphurus.australian natives are the best ones for this.so if thinking about fertilising a gum tree for example please use a fertiliser that has a low phosphurus level(below .08)otherwise you can kill it
4. The nutrients in fertilizer are used by the plant to make their own foods like carbohydrates and proteins. We have to ingest carbohydrates and proteins whereas the plants make these on their own by using the nutrients in fertilizers. So to make a long story short...plants use ferilizer to make the foods they require. In addition plants need the nutrients (like Nitrogen) to make chlorophyll (without chlorophyll the plant would starve to death) and phosphorus to make ATP which is the energy source of plants.