It’s easy conceptually to understand when animals eat physical food matter, it adds to their own body mass as they grow.
But potted plants grow 2x, 3x, etc their mass while the only (seemingly) inputs are Sun, water and occasional plant food. The soil level doesn’t seem to change much either, so where is the “material” coming from to make the plant bigger? Is it just from what I mentioned, and is there an easy way to understand how those things transforms to plant mass?
Edit: Thanks for all the answers! It unexpectedly helped me understand how plants capture carbon from the air and “store” it physically. I have a new appreciation for my houseplants 🪴
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The part you’re forgetting is air.
They take carbon dioxide from the air, water from the soil, and use the energy of sunlight to turn those two things into mass.
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