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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Plants are mostly made of carbs (including fibre, which is kind of just “carbs too chewy for us to digest”). Carbs are made out of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. Water gives you oxygen and hydrogen, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere gives you carbon and more oxygen, and sunlight gives you the necessary energy supply to fuel the chemistry that turns water+air into carbs.
They take in the CO2, and turn it into O2 that they release. That carbon is then used to essentially ‘build’ the plant. They are pretty much just air and water. But, there are still a lot of other things they somewhat need to still *grow*, and they usually get it from the soil. It’s why barren soil can’t really be used to grow plants, there’s just no nutrients.
You might see people ‘root’ a plant though by leaving it in water, but they don’t get everything they need from that water.
You do not grow hydroponic plants in JUST water. If you want growth and production, you need to have enough biomass (live fish is what I have experience with because I work at a fish stocking business that does modified hydroponics, as well as supplying actual hydroponic setups with fish) to “feed” the plants. The ideal setup for a fish/plant hydroponic system is at least two tanks, connected, with maybe a sump or a filter medium. You feed the fish who live in one tank, the fish poop, you either gravity-feed or pump the water into the second tank with the plants, the plants pull the dissolved fish poop up through their roots and absorb the nutrients in it, you either gravity-feed or pump the water back into the tank with the fish since it’s been cleaned. If you try to do hydroponics in just plain, clean water, you’re going to have very sad plants and/or have to fertilize the water in order to get any real growth.
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