Transpiration
Passive water movement through plants, cooling and enabling nutrient flow.
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The plant does not expend any energy for transpiration, making it a passive process.[1] Cooling of plants, alterations in cellular osmotic pressure, and the mass flow of mineral nutrients are all effects of transpiration.[1]
Quick Facts
- Field
- Plant physiology
- Known for
- Water movement through plants
- cooling
- nutrient uptake
- stomatal regulation
Facts from the source article.
Key facts and history
The transpiration ratio of crops tends to fall between 200 and 1000.[2] Growth and metabolism use only a tiny fraction of the water that roots absorb.[3] Transpiration and guttation account for the loss of 97–99.5% of the water taken up.[3] Cohesion is the property that causes water molecules to adhere to one another.[4]
The pull exerted by an evaporating water molecule on its neighbor creates an uninterrupted flow of water throughout the plant.[4] Leaves are able to draw water through the xylem, a phenomenon explained by the cohesion-tension theory.[3] Stomatal aperture size is the mechanism by which plants control their transpiration rate.[5] The rate at which transpiration occurs is affected by how much water the surrounding atmosphere demands through evaporation.[5]
Each day, a single acre of corn releases roughly 3,000–4,000 US gallons of water.[2]
What the research sources say
The book "Principles of field crop production" by Martin, published by Macmillan in 1976, provides data on transpiration amounts and ratios.[6][2]
References
- Wikipedia, "Transpiration" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Reddy, "University Botany- Iii : (Plant Taxonomy, Plant Embryology, Plant Physiology)", New Age International, 2007 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Transpiration" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Martin, "Principles of Field Crop Production", Macmillan Publishing Co., 1976 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Transpiration" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Sinha, "Modern Plant Physiology", CRC Press, 2004; Bhattacharya, "Physiological Processes in Plants Under Low Temperature Stress", Springer Nature, 2022-02-25; Cummins, "Biological Science", Freeman, Scott, 2007, p. 215 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Transpiration" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Graham, "Plant Biology", Pearson Education, Inc., 2006, p. 200–202 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Transpiration" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Mellander, "The influence of soil temperature on transpiration: a plot scale manipulation in a young Scots pine stand", Forest Ecology and Management, 2004-06-28, p. 15–28 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Open Library record, ISBN 9780023767203 ("Principles of field crop production"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Transpiration (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Transpiration (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Word definitions: the , each quoted from its Wikipedia article.
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