Nutrition in Plants

• Food is essential for all living organisms
• Carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals are components of food
• These components are called nutrients and are necessary for bodies
• All living organisms need food
• Plants can create food for themselves
• Animals, including humans, cannot create their own food
• Animals get food from plants, or animals that eat plants
• Humans and animals are directly or indirectly dependent on plants

Mode of Nutrition in Plants

• Plants are unique, as they can prepare food for themselves
• Plants use water, carbon dioxide, and minerals
• Raw materials are available in the plants surroundings
• Nutrients enable organisms to build, grow, repair, and provide energy for life
• Nutrition refers to how an organism takes in and utilizes food
• Autotrophic nutrition allows organisms to make food from simple substances
• Plants are autotrophs, using autotrophic nutrition
• Animals and most other organisms consume food prepared by plants
• Heterotrophs use heterotrophic nutrition

Photosynthesis

• Leaves are the site where food production occurs in plants
• Raw materials must reach the leaves
• Roots absorb water and minerals from the soil
• Roots transport water and minerals to the leaves
• Carbon dioxide is absorbed from the air

Cells

• Buildings are made of bricks, in the same way living things are built from cells

• Cells are tiny units of life

• Cells can be seen under a microscope

• Organisms may consist of only one cell

• Cell membrane: Thin outer boundary enclosing a cell

• Nucleus: Spherical structure located centrally in cells

• Cytoplasm: Jelly-like substance surrounding the nucleus

• Leaves possess tiny pores names stomata

• Stomata on the surface of the leaf, facilitate the intake of carbon dioxide

• Guard cells surround stomata

• Water and minerals travel to leaves through vessels

• Vessels are like pipes running throughout the plant

• Vessels create a continuous pathway for nutrients traveling to the leaves

• Chlorophyll helps leaves capture sunlight energy

• Photosynthesis uses energy to synthesize food from carbon dioxide and water

• Chlorophyll, sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water are key for photosynthesis

• Photosynthesis is a unique process on Earth

• Solar energy is captured and stored as food within the plant for energy

• the sun is the ultimate source of energy for all living organisms

• Without photosynthesis, food wouldn't exist

• Survival of all organisms relies on food made by plants

• Oxygen that is essential for survival is a byproduct of photosynthesis

• Photosynthesis occurs in green stems and branches alongside leaves

• Desert plants possess modified leaves (scale- or spine-like)

• These leaves minimize water loss through transpiration

• Desert plants depends on green stems for photosynthesis

• In the absence of photosynthesis, life would be impossible on the earth

• Chlorophyll-containing ells in leaves use sunlight, carbon dioxide and water to produce carbohydrates

• Oxygen is released

• Starch presence indicates photosynthesis, and it is a carbohydrate

Other Modes Of Nutrition in Plants

• Plants can still have chlorophyll
• Plants cannot make food
• Plants are dependednt on food produced by other plants
• Heterotrophic nutrition: process of deriving nutrition from other plants
• Cuscuta (Amarbel) is a yellow, wiry, branched structure that twines around trees
• Cuscuta does not have chlorophyll
• Cuscuta takes ready-made food from the plant its climbing
• Host: The plant from which Cuscuta derives nutrition from
• Cuscuta deprives hosts of nutrients because it is a parasite
• Some plants can trap insects and digest them
• Insectivorous plants eat insects
• Pitcher plant part of the leaf forms pitchers
• The top opens and closes like a lid
• Insectivorous plants are insect-eating plants

Saprotrophs

• Fungi reproduce with mushrooms

• Fungi can be found growing in moist soil or on rotting wood

• Fungi use a different mode of nutrition

• Fungi absorb nutrients from bread

• Saprotrophic nutrition-obtaining nutrition from dead and decaying organic matter

• Saprotrophs-organisms that use saprotrophic nutrition

• Fungi may grow on pickles, leather and clothes in humid weather

• Fungal spores are generally present in the air

• When they land on wet and warm things they germinate spores and start to grow

• Symbiosis: the relationship where organisms live together, sharing shelter and nutrients

• Fungi can lives inside plant roots

• The plant supplies nutrients to the fungus

• The fungus, in turn, provides water and certain nutrients to the plant

• Lichens: a chlorophyll-containing alga and a fungus living together

• The fungus provides shelter, water, and minerals

• The alga provides food to the fungus

How Nutrients Replenished In Soil

• Farmers use manure/fertilizers in fields or gardens to help plants
• Plants absorb minerals/nutrients from the soil
• Nutrients amounts in the soil decrease overtime
• NPK (Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) are elements needed to enrich the soil over time
• Plants cannot use nitrogen gas in the air
• Rhizobium can take atmospheric nitrogen and convert it into a usable form
• Rhizobium lives in the roots of legumes and provides them with nitrogen
• Plants provide food/shelter to the bacteria that helps them, this is a Symbiotic relationship

Learn about nutrition in plants. Plants create their own food using water, carbon dioxide, and minerals from their surroundings. Nutrients help organisms grow, repair, and provide energy. Animals and humans depend directly or indirectly on plants.