For example in hydroponics, the plant root has only water… where does it get the extra matter it needs to make more plant cells so it can grow? How does water turn to plant?
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You are right to question this – because your premise is a bit off!
The vast majority of “plant flesh” is made up of three elements – Hydrogen, Carbon, and Oxygen. Plants get these elements from water and carbon dioxide gas in the air. They use light to breakdown the molecules and reconfigure them as “plant”. By weight, this is the majority of the plant’s flesh.
But plants need tons of other elements as well, nutrients and minerals like nitrogen and phosphorus and tons of others.
Usually plants get these from the soil, or from other things that get them from the soil, but in the case of hydroponics there is no soil. So for hydroponics the minerals need to be dissolved into the water first, like salt is dissolved in the ocean, and then the plants can absorb the minerals via their roots in the water.
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