What Plants Need

Light, water, soil nutrients, and air for plant growth

All plants need four things to grow: light (energy source for photosynthesis), water (used in photosynthesis and to transport nutrients), nutrients from soil (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium for building cells), and carbon dioxide from air. Remove any one and the plant suffers. Too little light: pale, leggy growth. Too little water: wilting, then death. Too few nutrients: yellowing leaves, stunted growth. Too much water: root rot. Plants are like tiny factories that use sunlight as power to combine water and CO₂ into sugar (food) and oxygen.