An Overview of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium: Key Players of Nutrition Process in Plants
Elements play an important role in the physiology and overall growth of the plant. Depending upon the amount required by the plants for their growth, they can be broadly divided into macro- and microelement. Plants generally absorb these elements through
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An Overview of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium: Key Players of Nutrition Process in Plants Dwaipayan Sinha and Pramod Kumar Tandon
Abstract
Elements play an important role in the physiology and overall growth of the plant. Depending upon the amount required by the plants for their growth, they can be broadly divided into macro- and microelement. Plants generally absorb these elements through the root system from the soil. Humans have been dependent on plants since the advent of civilization for food and medicine. With the increase in population there has been an increase in demand for the food and which resulted in the intensification of agriculture. Needless to mention, this often results in scarcity of available nutrients from the soil, thereby stressing the necessity adding excess nutrients from outside. Thus the relevance of fertilization comes into the picture and its importance has been gradually felt by the scientists since the last 200 years. Various types of fertilizers containing essential elements are now being added to agricultural lands for betterment of yield. This chapter is an attempt to highlight the various aspects of three essential macroelements required by the plants, namely nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). The chapter deals with the requirement of these three elements from the agronomic point of view and the present status of the fertilization process involving the mentioned elements. Keywords
Nitrogen · Phosphorus · Potassium · Fertilizer · Agriculture
D. Sinha (*) Department of Botany, Government General Degree College, Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal, India P. K. Tandon Department of Botany, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, India # Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Mishra et al. (eds.), Sustainable Solutions for Elemental Deficiency and Excess in Crop Plants, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8636-1_5
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D. Sinha and P. K. Tandon
Introduction
Elements play a pivotal role in the overall physiology of the plant. The plant acquires elements from the soil largely through their root system which are then transported and translocated in their desired destination inside the plant body (Paez-Garcia et al. 2015). This uptake of elements from the soil is facilitated by various transporters present in the cells of root and root hairs of the plants (Nussaume et al. 2011; Kimura et al. 2019). Once inside the plant body the elements play their individual role all of which are related to overall growth and productivity of the plant. Plants require 17 elements for their growth and depending upon the amount of requirement they can be classified into macro- and micronutrients. The macronutrients of the plants are those which are present at greater than 1000 mg per kg of the dry weight of the plant. These elements include carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, calcium, potassium, magnesium, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus out of which carbon, hydrogen and oxygen constitute roughly 95% of plant dry matter. Other elements which are present at less than 100 mg per kg of dry weight ar
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