so i have a tree i put in a pot, covered with soil, and only ever added water to it. my tree's mass has increased, yet the soil has not lost any! by what magicks was water transmuted to bark, sap, and leaf?
Here's a nitrogen cycle diagram. It's not dissimilar to things like the water cycle or food chain cycle.
Show
Practically speaking, you want to occasionally plant nitrogen fixing plants in your garden, as other plants will remove it from the soil. Lots of people will put tons of fertilizer into their garden, and that seeks to achieve similar goals.
Some plants slurp nitrogen out of the air. This is inefficient since atmospheric nitrogen is M2, which is quite stable and happy to stay that way. Takes a lot of energy to break that bond.
Other plants create microbial biomes in their root systems that fix nitrogen for them in forms that are easier to absorb, like ammonium and nitrate, which are much cheaper to use. The plant gets bioavailable nitrogen for cheap, the soil gets leftover fixed nitrogen, and the bacteria get a home. In a healthy ecosystem other plants can crib off the leftover nitrogen and provide benefits of their own, like fixing topsoil or creating biomes for fungi to recycle dead matter back into useful nutrients.
The sky is full of nitrogen, some of them can grab it from there and others take it from the ground. I'm not a plant scientist, so I don't really know all the details
so i have a tree i put in a pot, covered with soil, and only ever added water to it. my tree's mass has increased, yet the soil has not lost any! by what magicks was water transmuted to bark, sap, and leaf?
The mass of a tree is primarily carbon, and comes from the splitting of CO2 into O2 and C by way of photosynthesis.
okay but non-joke question: what the hell is a nitrogen cycle and how does it work in practice like in your garden
Here's a nitrogen cycle diagram. It's not dissimilar to things like the water cycle or food chain cycle.
Practically speaking, you want to occasionally plant nitrogen fixing plants in your garden, as other plants will remove it from the soil. Lots of people will put tons of fertilizer into their garden, and that seeks to achieve similar goals.
Some plants slurp nitrogen out of the air. This is inefficient since atmospheric nitrogen is M2, which is quite stable and happy to stay that way. Takes a lot of energy to break that bond.
Other plants create microbial biomes in their root systems that fix nitrogen for them in forms that are easier to absorb, like ammonium and nitrate, which are much cheaper to use. The plant gets bioavailable nitrogen for cheap, the soil gets leftover fixed nitrogen, and the bacteria get a home. In a healthy ecosystem other plants can crib off the leftover nitrogen and provide benefits of their own, like fixing topsoil or creating biomes for fungi to recycle dead matter back into useful nutrients.
The sky is full of nitrogen, some of them can grab it from there and others take it from the ground. I'm not a plant scientist, so I don't really know all the details
The pea family is notorious for this, this is part of why I throw clover all over anytime I turn dirt in the yard
Symbiosis with nitrogen fixing bacteria.
Paradoxically, you must break nitrogen to fix nitrogen.
equivalent exchange - the first law of alchemy
reminder to also refill the air in your pots