Law of the Minimum

Often called Liebig’s law of the minimum, which states that plant growth (focusing on agricultural yield) is limited by the least available resource, which might be nutrients, water, light, temperature, etc. There might be an abundance of a range of plant nutrients, however, if one essential plant nutrient is lacking, for achieving high yield, then this will reduce (i.e. limit) the growth potential of the plant. A sufficiency of a resource will aid achieving maximum or optimum yields, whilst an inadequate amount of availability will reduce and limit yield, although this is frequently assessed on the economic return of the resources, typically fertiliser inputs, and yields.

From a turfgrass perspective, maximum or high growth rates are not a requirement, but rather the ability of the plant to develop into a healthy and resilient sward. So long as a minimum amount of nutrient, or resource, is available to enable satisfactory growth to take place then the least available resource may still provide adequate inputs to enable this to occur and will not be limiting. A minimum amount of available resource can be significantly below that of what might be considered an inadequate amount because the context is different from what was originally envisaged for the law under agricultural situations.