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Plant Nutrients - Nitrogen · Hydroponics Daily

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  Welcome back to Hydroponics Daily. Today's topic is nitrogen.
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  Nitrogen is essential for all life on earth because it's in all proteins.
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  So proteins are very important. They are a number of enzymes.
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  They have numerous functions in plants and humans.
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  And so without nitrogen and nitrogen fertilizers, you limit the amount of growth you can get.
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  So amino acids, the amine refers to the nitrogen in the amino acid and proteins
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  that are made up of amino acids.
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  So there's no proteins in plants without nitrogen.
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  The main protein in plants is something called rubisco, and that's required
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  for fixing carbon dioxide out of the air.
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  Without rubisco, there would be no life on earth. So nitrogen, very important.
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  Also, nitrogen is a key component of the chlorophyll molecule.
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  So nitrogen is required to the photosynthesis
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  from that perspective for the pigment that harnesses the energy from
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  light and transfers it down the electron chain and without
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  enough nitrogen you get symptoms of deficiency the good
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  thing is that the symptoms of deficiency of nitrogen are easy
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  to spot problem is they're quite common as well first thing
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  you'll get is chlorosis of the older leaves i've seen here in
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  my amazing diagram the older leaves go yellow you'll
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  see this on many crops that are you haven't fed them
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  for a long time and the reason they go yellow well they
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  don't really go yellow for a start they the
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  green is removed revealing the background pigments that are yellow so going
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  yellow is is not referred to in science we say chlorosis because it's the removal
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  of the green and the underlying carotenoids the yellowy orange pigments are
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  revealed that's because the nitrogen's been moved to the younger developing parts of the plant.
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  Plants can do that easily and so that's why the lower leaves go yellow and then they die off.
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  You'll also get stunted growth because simply without nitrogen there won't be
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  enough nutrition for growth and because nitrogen is the nutrient that's required
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  in the highest amount then a.
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  It's going to be limiting most often. There's plenty of nitrogen in gold leaf
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  or in the UK, liquid gold, and it's in two forms.
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  It's as nitrate and as ammonium, NH4 and NO3.
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  That's important because both forms of nitrogen are required for healthy crops with good yield.
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  If you apply just nitrates, as in some fertilizers do.
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  You get excessive leggy growth and too
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  much of ammonium and it's harder for the plant to absorb it you don't.
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  Want nitrogen gas nitrogen gas is useless.
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  For plants they can't they don't have the the mechanisms
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  and the the ability to take
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  nitrogen from the air and convert it fix it as it's
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  called into a form that can be useful only bacteria
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  can do that so you'll hear of legumes fixing
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  nitrogen it's actually the bacteria in their roots that do that some
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  free living bacteria can do it but they're not
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  they're not as good as legumes and so you
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  want either nitrates or ammonium you don't want nitrites
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  which is the one in the middle where they're converted to this happens in
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  cold soils when your soil is too cold or your
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  gram media is too cold you get conversion between them to
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  this n-o2- because the bacteria that
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  do this shifting don't work in cold don't
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  go all the way in cold conditions and nitrites are
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  poisonous to plants so you don't that's a problem of
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  adding nitrogen fertilizer to cold soil so
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  one of the disadvantages growing outdoors is that
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  you get the formation of poisonous nitrites if you try and fertilize your
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  soil in the cold there are other sources of
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  nitrogen amino acids and can be applied directly to
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  plants and absorbed and they can absorb amino acids it used
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  to be thought that they can't but the research in alaska and the arctic shows
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  they could when this is an important source of nitrogen up there in the really
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  cold areas and plants some plants can absorb nitrogen from pollution in the
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  air so nitrogen oxides nitrogen dioxides.
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  However, this is not all plants, and also it will represent a tiny proportion
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  of all the nitrogen available to the plants.
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  Definitely don't want to rely on it, even if you're in an urban area with lots of pollution.
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  Nitrogen will always be the highest value on a base fertilizer.
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  If it's not, something's gone wrong, and it's certainly the highest by concentration
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  nutrient in gold leaf or in the UK, liquid gold.
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  And that's because we definitely don't want any deficiencies or reductions in
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  nitrogen use anything you think i've missed on nitrogen you can apply too much
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  nitrogen plants can absorb.
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  Luxury amounts so things like nettles they can
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  absorb more nitrogen they actually need and it doesn't
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  actually increase growth and if you apply too
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  much then you might get symptoms of
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  toxicity however they're they're rare it's
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  hard to overdose on nitrogen alone other nutrients it's
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  easier they don't have as much of an osmotic effect the
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  real issue is you're going to stimulate algal growth
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  in your feed if you apply too much and it's
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  going to be a source of pollution to waterways if
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  you're especially if you're running using a run-to-waste system
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  nitrogen going into waterways should always be avoided
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  and for this reason whenever i'm growing hydroponically
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  i tend to if i've got waste run off
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  then i just put that on my garden or my lawn
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  it's a waste of fertilizer and it also prevents that pollution going into the
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  water system and having to be removed so always be a a environmentally friendly
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  grower when you even when you're growing hydroponically that's been hydroponic
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  daily nitrogen on to the next nutrients next probably phosphorus i would imagine thank you.