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The use of plant extracts in all these areas depends on their bioactivity and, therefore, their composition, which is strongly related to the extraction technique. Extraction is in fact the most imperative step in plant extract provision, and the use of different extraction techniques determines the bioactive compounds present. Since bioactive compounds occurring in plant material consist of multicomponent mixtures, their separation and detection are fundamental processes in the structural analysis of extracts. Finally, the analysis of the plant extracts and/or purified bioactive compounds, involving the applications of common Phytochemical and in vitro biological transmission assays, is essential for the correlation of structure with function of extracts in order to identify their bioactivity for targeted applications.

Plant nutrition is the study of the chemical elements and compounds necessary for plant growth, plant metabolism and their external supply. In its absence the plant is unable to complete a normal life cycle, or that the element is part of some essential plant constituent or metabolite. This is in accordance with Justus von Liebig's law of the minimum. The total essential plant nutrients include seventeen different elements: carbon, oxygen and hydrogen which are absorbed from the air, whereas other nutrients including nitrogen are typically obtained from the soil (exceptions include some parasitic or carnivorous plants).

Most soil conditions across the world can provide plants adapted to that climate and soil with sufficient nutrition for a complete life cycle, without the addition of nutrients as fertilizer. However, if the soil is cropped it is necessary to artificially modify soil fertility through the addition of fertilizer to promote vigorous growth and increase or sustain yield. This is done because, even with adequate water and light, nutrient deficiency can limit growth and crop yield.

Nutrient status (mineral nutrient and trace element composition, also called ionome and nutrient profile) of plants are commonly portrayed by tissue elementary analysis. Interpretation of the results of such studies, however, has been controversial During recent decades the nearly two-century-old “law of minimum” or “Liebig's law” (that states that plant growth is controlled not by the total amount of resources available, but by the scarcest resource) has been replaced by several mathematical approaches that use different models in order to take the interactions between the individual nutrients into account.

Later developments in this field were based on the fact that the nutrient elements (and compounds) do not act independently from each other, Baxter, 2015 because there may be direct chemical interactions between them or they may influence each other's uptake, translocation, and biological action via a number of mechanisms as exemplified for the case of ammonia.

The effect of a nutrient deficiency can vary from a subtle depression of growth rate to obvious stunting, deformity, discoloration, distress, and even death. Visual symptoms distinctive enough to be useful in identifying a deficiency are rare. Most deficiencies are multiple and moderate. However, while a deficiency is seldom that of a single nutrient, nitrogen is commonly the nutrient in shortest supply.

Chlorosis of foliage is not always due to mineral nutrient deficiency. Solarization can produce superficially similar effects, though mineral deficiency tends to cause premature defoliation, whereas solarization does not, nor does solarization depress nitrogen concentration.

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