The in planta visualisation of specific nutrients provides important information to understand how they are utilised by plants. In this special focus issue on ‘Plant Responses to the Environment’, Sugita et al. (on pp.743-753) visualised the long-distance transport dynamics of 8 ions and of photosynthetically fixed carbon in Arabidopsis thaliana. Their analyses revealed several characteristic transport properties such as ion-specific transport systems along the inflorescence, and the switching of source/sink organs during the development of lateral stems, which demonstrate the powerful use of this live imaging technique.