Amino acid functions in soil and plant growth

Amino acids are molecules critical in plant growth, flowering, fruiting and resilience to stress and disease.

Every plant, like any organism, needs certain components for growth over and above soil, sun, rain, and air. The basic component of a living plant cell is protein, which is built from a sequence of amino acids.

Plants synthesise amino acids from the primary elements, carbon and oxygen are obtained from air, nitrogen from the soil, and hydrogen from water in the soil. By means of photosynthesis, carbon hydrate complexes are formed, leading to the synthesis of amino acids, by collateral metabolic pathways (chemical reactions).

Amino acids can play many different roles in plants including; acting as stress-reducing agents, being a source of nitrogen, as a hormone precursor, involved in biosynthesis of non-protein compounds like vitamins, coenzymes, pigments, etc.