Nutrition in Plants

• Food is essential for all living organisms and its components which are carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals, are called nutrients
• Nutrients are necessary for the body.
• All organisms require food.
• Plants can synthesise food for themselves however animals (including humans) cannot.
• Humans and animals depend directly or indirectly on plants.

Mode of Nutrition

• Plants can prepare their own food using water, carbon dioxide and minerals.
• Nutrients enables living organisms to build their bodies, grow, repair damages, and provide the energy that carries out life processes.
• Nutrition involves an organism taking food, and its utilisation within the body.
• Autotrophic nutrition is a mode by which organisms make food themselves from simple substances.
• Plants are autotrophs.
• Heterotrophs (animals and some other organisms), take food prepared by plants.

Photosynthesis

• Leaves are the food factories of plants, so all raw materials must reach the leaf.
• Water and minerals are absorbed through the roots and transported to the leaves.
• Carbon dioxide from the air is taken through tiny pores on the surface of leaves, and these pores are surrounded by guard cells called stomata.
• Water and minerals are transported to the leaves through vessels acting like pipes in the root, stem, branches, which create a continuous pathway for nutrients to reach the leaf.
• Leaves contain a green pigment called chlorophyll that captures sunlight energy.
• This energy is used to synthesise food from carbon dioxide and water.
• Photosynthesis : synthesis of food occurs with sunlight present.
• Chlorophyll, sunlight, carbon dioxide and water are necessary to carry out the process of photosynthesis.
• The sun is the ultimate source of energy for all living organisms.
• Without photosynthesis there would be no food and the survival of all living organisms, (directly or indirectly) would be affected.
• Oxygen is essential for survival

Other Facts

• Photosynthesis can also happen in other green parts of the plant, specially the green stems and green branches.
• Desert plants have scale/spine-like leaves to reduce water loss.
• Chlorophyll containing cells of leaves use carbon dioxide and water to synthesise carbohydrates with sunlight.
• The result of photosynthesis releases oxygen and the leaf stores starch which indicates it happened.
• Leaves besides green, can have red, brown and other pigments, but photosynthesis still takes place.
• Algae is green because of containing chlorophyll and can prepare their own food by photosynthesis.
• Carbohydrates consist of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and are used to synthesise proteins and fats.
• Proteins are nitrogenous substances containing nitrogen.
• Plants rely on bacteria to convert gaseous nitrogen into usable forms in the soil.
• They absorb nitrogen with water or from fertilizers.

Other Modes of Nutrition

• There are plants without Chlorophyll, so depend on food produced by other plants using heterotrophic nutrition.
• Cuscuta (Amarbel) ( that has no Chlorophyll), takes readymade food by climbing another plant.
• The plant Cuscuta climbs, is called the host, and it deprives the nutrients of the host, so Cuscuta is called a parasite.
• Insectivorous plants digest trapped insects to absorb nutrients.
• Fungi, Mushrooms etc utilize saprotrophic nutrition through which they obtain nutrients from dead, decaying matter, and these organisms are saprotrophs.
• Fungal pores in the air can land on wet and warm things when they germinate and grow.
• Symbiosis is when organisms live together sharing shelter and nutrients, for example, certain fungi live inside plant roots, plants provide nutrients to the fungus, and the fungus provides water/nutrients.
• Lichens are chlorophyll-containing organisms which have algae plus fungus living together, the fungus provides shelter, water and minerals to the alga, and the alga prepares/provides food for the fungus.

Replenishing Nutrients

• Plants absorb minerals and nutrients from the soil, so fertilisers and manures with nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous need to be added to enrich the soil and keep plants healthy.
• Rhizobium takes atmospheric nitrogen and convert it into a soluble form, living in the roots of gram, peas and beans.
• Plants provides the Rhizobium bacteria food/shelter exhibiting a symbiotic relationship, to reduce the use of nitrogenous fertiliser where leguminous plants are grown.
• Autotrophs: Plants that make their own food.
• Parasites or Saprotrophs: Few plants derive nutrition from other organisms.
• Heterotrophs: All animals depend on plants or other animals for food.
• Insectivorous plants are partial heterotrophs.

Explore the essentials of nutrition for living organisms, focusing on plants. Learn how plants synthesize their own food through photosynthesis, utilizing water, carbon dioxide, and minerals. Understand the concepts of autotrophic and heterotrophic nutrition.