Speaker 1: Jack Threads is the online shopping destination for dudes. Everything
Speaker 1: on the side is up to eight off. All styles
Speaker 1: are curated, so buyer's remorse just doesn't happen. What's more
Speaker 1: is if you were brain Stuff, you can skip the
Speaker 1: membership weight list and get instant access at jack threads
Speaker 1: dot com slash stuff. Welcome to brain Stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff works dot com where smart Happens. Hi, I'm Marshall
Speaker 1: Brain with today's question, what is fertilizer and why do
Speaker 1: plants need it? In order for a plant to grow
Speaker 1: and thrive, it needs a number of different chemical elements.
Speaker 1: The most important break into four categories. First, there's carbon,
Speaker 1: hydrogen and oxygen, which are available from air and water
Speaker 1: and they're in plentiful supply. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium or next.
Speaker 1: These three macro nutrients are what you find in packaged fertilizer.
Speaker 1: Then there's sulfur, calcium, and magnesium. These are called secondary nutrients.
Speaker 1: And finally there's boron, cobalt, copper, and things like that.
Speaker 1: They're called micronutrients. The most important of these, the ones
Speaker 1: that are needed in the largest quantity by a plant,
Speaker 1: are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. These three chemicals are important
Speaker 1: because they're necessary as basic building blocks like amino acids,
Speaker 1: cell membranes, and a TP. For example, every amino acid
Speaker 1: contains nitrogen. Every molecule making up every cell's membrane contains phosphorus.
Speaker 1: The membrane molecules are called phosphoe lipids, and so does
Speaker 1: every molecule of a t P, which is the main
Speaker 1: energy source for all cells. Potassium makes up one to
Speaker 1: two percent of the weight of any plant, and as
Speaker 1: an ion in cells, it's essential to metabolism. Without nitrogen,
Speaker 1: phosphorus and potassium, the plant simply cannot grow because it
Speaker 1: can't make the pieces it needs. It's like a car
Speaker 1: factory running out of steel or a road crew running
Speaker 1: out of asphalt. To make plants grow faster, what need
Speaker 1: to do is supply the elements that the plants need
Speaker 1: in readily available forms. That's the goal of fertilizer. Most
Speaker 1: fertilizers supply just nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium because the other
Speaker 1: chemicals are needed in much lower quantities and are generally
Speaker 1: available in most soils. Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium availability is
Speaker 1: the big limit to growth for plants, So why don't
Speaker 1: people need fertilizers to grow because we get everything we
Speaker 1: need from the plants we eat or from the meat
Speaker 1: of animals that eat plants. Plants are factories that do
Speaker 1: all the work to process the basic elements of life
Speaker 1: and make them available to us. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how staff works
Speaker 1: dot Com? Streaming TV shows and movies directly to your
Speaker 1: home is a breeze with Netflix. As a Netflix member,
Speaker 1: you can instantly watch TV and movies on your PC, mac,
Speaker 1: mobile device, or television. Get a free dirty day trial membership.
Speaker 1: Go to Netflix dot com slash stuff and sign up today.