research
How does plant growth occur?
- Photosynthesis is the process by which plants turn sunlight into food. Food that is created by this photosynthesis is used by the plant to add more tissue to itself, whether rit be more leaves, flowers, or fruits. Without the process of photosynthesis, plant growth would not occur, and eventually the plant would not only stop growing, but stop living.
How darkness affects plant growth
- The photosynthetic process occurs most readily when the sunlight available to the plant is the greatest. This is why plants in the tropics grow so large. They are near the equator where the sunlight is directly overhead much of the year. However, photosynthesis can occur in the dark. It does not occur as rapidly as during the daylight, but it is possible. If this were not the case, plants would shut down entirely every night when the sun went down.
- Therefore, the periodic darkness of nighttime does not affect plant growth very much. In areas of the world, like Alaska, that experience seasonal increases in the length of daylight photosynthesis does make plants grow very large. Although Alaskan vegetable gardens are filled with plants that do well with cool temperatures and a short growing season (turnips and cabbage, for example), they tend to grow very large. This is because the sunlight hitting the gardens can do so for up to 20 hours a day.
- Plants would not do well in total darkness. If a plant were to be placed in a closet with no light it would stop growing. If placed there too long, even with adequate water, it would still die because plants depend on receiving some sunlight
All things need energy to grow. We get energy from the food we eat. Plants get energy from light through a process called photosynthesis. This is how light affects the growth of a plant. Without light, a plant would not be able to produce the energy it needs to grow.
The question, “What kind of light do plants need” may also refer to time needed in light. Normally they are referred to as low/shade, medium/part sun or high/full sun plants. Low or shade plants may need only a few hours of light a day while high or full sun plants need eight or more hours of light a day.
Hypothesis
Since my research shows that plants can't grow in the dark, because plants need light for photosynthesis, the plants in the dark will die, but only if they find a little bit of sun, so they have a little chance to live, but the ones with sun will grow because the sun is important in the photosynthesis processes. Because plants need light to do photosynthesis not only light but they also need carbon dioxide. After the process they produce oxygen and glucose.They use glucose as nutrients to make them grow so without photosynthesis they can't produce glucose and without glucose they can't grow.
