2. General Mineral Deficiency Symptoms of Plants.

3. Application and Storing Fertilisers.

4. Plants and their Needs.

WHAT MAKES PLANTS GROW?

We have to eat to live. Without a regular supply of starch, protein and other complex nutrient we should soon die. Plants have a different arrangement. Plants - from the smallest seedlings to the largest trees - are factories which take in raw materials from the air, water and soil to build carbohydrates, proteins and fats. To do this they need a constant supply of raw materials and a source of energy - sunlight - to form roots, leaves, stems, flowers, fruits and seeds. Each part of the plant has a special job to do but its performance depends on the co-operation of every other parts.

In the last hundred years, great strides in the study of plant nutrition have been made. We now know that apart from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, which plants get from air and soil water to manufacture their own starch and sugars, about a dozen nutrient or elements are also essential for plant growth.