In a way what determines time in plant growth is the basic question.

yes it can be done considering the instances of hydroponics. you can grow plants in liquid medium (hoagland solutions) supplemented with essentials elements.

increasing their concentration at some level will fasten the growth of the plants as well and vice versa

Yes, it is possible via aeroponic and hydroponic system. You can able to grow 4 times more than field in Laboratory, you have to use Hoagland solution is as a medium.  

Dear Mr. Jindal 

A tomato plant fruits in 5 months, and grows to 2-3ft, and gives 2-3 kg of tomatoes. 

This video, at the HortiIndia workshop-cum-exhibition at Technology Park, Greater Noida, features a 40ft plant yielding 25kg tomatoes per plant; obtained by soil-less farming. This plant fruited in less than 5 months. 

Here is the link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmVVs6cj5y4

This is really interesting thought experiment with far reaching applications if proven possible. I am not an expert but I don't think that exact answers to the question have been found till now. If someone finds such manipulative formula it would be a great issue in the field of agriculture, life science and of course in economy. 

Do it all - observation research - plant growth facilitating factors

• Innovative idea
• Unbiased group
• Experimentation universal
• Different locations under controlled conditions
• Parental care to plants life

Plants are indeed such a wonderful organisms can adopt any abiotic conditions subject to availability of nutrients, water and sunlight. Since soil is a medium but plants love a living soil medium wherein lots of soil micro organisms promote cycling of nutrients and tradeoffs. Since cycling of nutrients is an important functional attributes, if you provide a medium instead of soil, you have to have all care of nutrient cycling. Because, plants are very sensitive some times for essential nutrients (carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorus), particularly at seedling emergence.

There are huge number of research work based on nutrients, water and soil composition.

Recently, many biologists, genetic engineers and molecular biologists are proposing and focusing ideas regarding genetic modifications of plants as well as well as of others eukaryotic and prokaryotic microorganisms. There are many genetically modified plants (crops) nowadays receiving more attentions positively and negatively by people. No doubt, genetically modified crops can have better efficiency or importance . But who will take guarantee that gm crops can cope with important microorganisms who play wonderful relationships to maintain possibilities of life of lower and higher plants at ecological scale in nature.

For your question, my answer is yes. Plants have many unique character but limited with certain conditions.

Sahara and Takla Makan desert ecosystems may bloom if we provide abiotic conditions. Both deserts have soil but the soils are dead just because of no microorganisms, poor essential nutrients and no moisture content (less than one percent at 0-10 cm soil where soil microorganisms made habitat).

My suggestions to those molecular biologists and genetic engineers, kindly prepare desert loving GM crops to restore desert ecosystems as desertification has already converted about 45 percent of total geographical areas of the world. Since, desertification is still continuing process degrading soil biological fertility. No ecological works with GM crops have been reported so far any part of the world, moreover, not a single European country accepted research ideas on genetic modifications!

In brief, a plant can grow unconditional subject to certain limitations.

Thanks

Plants can be grown in lab without soil by supplementing required nutrition and light through hydrophonic cultures. But for increased growth rate in lab condition is a big challenge. All living things are accustomed to day night change which happen on earth from their evolving time long ago. As said earlier circadian clock/ rhythm etc are in build and recorded in the genome itself. Increasing the growth rate of a given species, again a genetic character, under artificial conditions are only possible to a certain extend, by providing optimum requirements, beyond which the genetic set up will not be plastic enough to change, even under huge inputs.  

Yes My dear it can be. Plants can be grown in lab without soil medium. The medium may be moss, water (hydroponic) etc and the nutrient may be supplied in liquid form. Higher doses of N can increase the growth but it also attract lot of insects and pests too. Thanks

There are indeed enough studies that proof the negative impact of increased growth on the resistance to all kind of pests.

Take a look at this one:

http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/mcauslane/eny6203/pdfs/hermsmattson1992.pdf

@Jun Murata your reply is fascinating. So you mean there are internal clocks of around 24 hrs. Amazing! Who controls them and - has this cycle of 24 hrs anything to do with earth's rotation(spin)? Does it imply that plants (or other organism with defined age) have internal growth mechanisms based on the day-night cycle of that planet? I wonder how the rate of growth is controlled. If that is static, age is static. Otherwise we possibly can modify average age.

There is a possibility of feedback from earth's rotation which basically defines the length of day and night period and infact time and aging, which tends to synchronize with the local clock in plants which is also independently close to 24 hour cycle. Can much severe variations  be synchronized is another question. If we mimic dark and bright periods in a plant  by keeping it in an enclosed condition, with requisite  CO2 fed into during sunny cycle can we alter the internal clock period of the plant and thus change the growth rate? That was my basic question. It seems simple to plan such an experiment and results could be noticeable in about 3-6 months. 

LED light manufacturers claiming faster growth rate using LED light over classical Flurescence light. I had several meeting with them and they always came with some photographic proof.

It is all possibility to grow plant in under such condition via the use of aeroponic and hydroponic system. It's been experimented in the possibility of growing plant out the earth ecosystem, whether in moon, or other nearby planets to earth by astronauts and plant ecologists/physiologists.

The answer is very simple and that is YES.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/the-good-earth/Ludhiana-resident-grows-veggies-on-water-not-soil/articleshow/46710608.cms

Hydroponics has been successfully used to grow food crops.

Plants grown by this method yield more than conventional crops grown on soil. One of the reasons is that plants grown by hydroponics do not need to compete with parasites in soil.

Now, with regard to fast-forwarding the day-night duration, that experiment, if performed today, is not likely to succeed because plants evolved in environments where day and night lasts for several hours. They sense light duration and then bring about various responses like growth, flowering, etc.

It is possible to alter their sensing machinery, once enough is known about how it actually works. Once this is achieved, your thought experiment is likely to succeed.

@Jun Murata, I can realize it is a complicated issue. I was imagining it is the total integrated light which is the requirement which can be achieved by enhancing intensity but reduced in time so that the time integral over a day is made equivalent to artificial shortened day. If that happens, we feed larger quantities for shortened time spans thus defining two time frames, one that of a plant which is fraction of another of humans on the earth. In that case we could have engineered fruition in same number of cycles or plant days  which infact is a fraction of actual time. This is hypothetical and  requires to understand what determines time in a plant. Is it related to only sunshine and darkness oscillation number or something else.

Viewed all the discussions,Limitations are every where so lab.growth is nano part of actual growth.Work must connected with reality.

@Jun Murata if I go a step further my motivation will be to further question if the time that is encountered in growth of plants or animals is measured by days and nights on earth? At poles where the days and nights can turn very different in "hours" would they come to fruition same way? Basically is time defined internally in plants and animals or is it external? Would a human fetus grow in about 9 months earth time at other planets too?