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Do some plants grow only at night?
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16-05-2007, 01:51 PM posted to sci.bio.botany
Buddy
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: May 2007
Posts: 8
Do some plants grow only at night?
Just wanted to say thanks for the help and the time taken to answer my
question.
so bravely stated:
It depends how you define plant growth. If you define growth as an
increase in plant dry weight, then the answer is probably no because a
gain in dry weight occurs mainly in the light for photosynthetic
plants, except possibly CAM plants.
However, if you define growth as an increase in size, then many plants
may also grow at night because growth requires water pressure (turgor)
to expand cells. During the day, plants often have lower turgor
because of their rapid transpiration rate (Munns et al. 2000). Munns
et al. (2000) also note that internal hormonal controls can override
plant water status effects on leaf elongation depending on the time
scale.
Huber and Hanson (1992) found that leaf expansion occurred mainly at
night for a wild-type tobacco. However, a starchless mutant tobacco
expanded its leaves mainly during the day.
David R. Hershey
References
Plant Growth Challenge
http://mvh.sr.unh.edu/challenges/pla..._challenge.htm
Huber, S.C. and Hanson, K.R. 1992. Carbon Partitioning and Growth of a
Starchless Mutant of Nicotiana sylvestris. Plant Physiology 99(4):
1449-1454.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...?artid=1080646
Munns, R. et al. 2000. Water relations and leaf expansion: Importance
of time scale. Journal of Experimental Botany 51: 1495-1504.
http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/re...1/350/1495.pdf
Buddy wrote:
I came across the following quote, and many plants are
nocturnal, plants of the nightshade family; tomatoes, potatoes,
peppers, eggplant, etc. only grow at night... they store up energy
during daylight but don't actually grow until it's dark.
Is this true? Can anyone site a source for this information?
I know most plants consume CO2 in the day and O2 at night, but the above
statement seems counter intuitive.
TIA
--
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't hold his head under 'til
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XX: Buddy
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You can lead a horse to water, but you can't hold his head under 'til
the bubbles stop.
-
XX: Buddy
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