A simple way to explain how plants grow...

[utah9]

I am scientifically and botanically retarded and can't even understand the Nat'l Geo kids page. Can anyone give me a simplified explanation of photosynthesis and how plants grow? Something a kid could understand.

Many thanks,

[pantalone]

It is really creepy. And very complex.

Simply put:

Plants grow because they breath. Plants suck in nutrients through the air, and adding that to whatever water they get, they are able to grow. Whereas you and I need to eat to get our nutrients, plants suck the carbon out of the air. While plants inhale our air, they turn the carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen which they breath out, using the carbon as a building block. Remember they also get oxygen from water. Essentially photosynthesis is closer related to our (mammalian) breathing than is plant respiration. Adding together the oxygen, carbon and hydrogen, they make sugar via photsynthesis. Photsynthesis is just turning light energy into something that can manipulate the molecules. The cycle of respiration is too complex to break down easily, but suffice to say more energy comes out than goes in.

In living beings, all activity comes down to cellular respiration, and it is sugars or starches that make all that possible.

Seriously, plants will turn Carbon, Oxygen and Hydrogen into anything they need. C,H, & O are the main elements in Protein, Fat and Carbohydrates. Plants just juggle the hell out of every thing.

An interesting fact. You can change the schedule of a flowering plants flowering schedule by feeding it. (Usually, you'd want to just give it water.)

My only real question is why? Why is this important. My spider fern sense tingles, and I think you must have particular reasons.

[Fortean]

While we may know the basics of photosynthesis, we do not yet know the specifics; and, there are two kinds of photosynthesis.

Plants and animals differ, because plants manage to produce sugars by way of photosynthesis. Both plants and animals derive energy from sugars by the breakdown of sugars with oxygen and water in a complicated series of chemical reactions, known as the Krebs cycle.

As plants have a pigment, known as chlorophyl, most of them can absorb light energy to break down water into oxygen and hydrogen; the excess oxygen is released by respiration; and, the hydrogen is combined with carbon dioxide, acquired by respiration, to produce simple sugars, in a complicated series of chemical reactions, known as the Calvin cycle. That's the process of oxygenic photosynthesis; but, some other plants break down chemical compounds without the release of oxygen, which is anoxygenic photosynthesis. Scientists still do not agree as to how the light energy is chemically utilized.

[utah9]

Thanks so much...both of you! Why do I want to know? Long story!