How Plants Get Their Food

1. How Plants Get Their Food

2. 2 199.8 lb soil 200 lb soil In 1649, A Belgian physician, van Helmont, set up an experiment in which he planted a willow sapling, weighing 5 lb, in 200 lb of soil. How do plants get their food ? The soil was watered but nothing else was added. After 5 years, the tree had gained 169.2 lb in weight but the soil had lost only 2 pounds. van Helmont concluded that the tree had made 169lb of new growth from water alone.

3. 3 van Helmont’s experiment was effective in showing that the plant’s food did not come from the soil. But he had overlooked the fact that airwas available to the plant as well as water. Could it be that the plant made 169 lb of material from just airand water? This might seem unlikely, but we now know that plants do indeed make their food using carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil.

4. 4 Feeding Animals get their food by eating plants, orother animals Carnivores eat animals Herbivores eat plants Plants make their own food They combine carbon dioxide from the air with water and dissolved salts from the soil Plants do NOTget their food from the soil The first stage by which plants make food is called PHOTOSYNTHESIS

5. or (c) other animals ... plant products, 5 Animals get their food … by eating plants or ... Plants make their food by photosynthesis

6. 6 Photosynthesis Green plants take in carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air They take up water (H2O) from the soil The plants combine the CO2 with the H2O to make the sugar, glucose (C6H12O6) 6CO2 + 6H2O = C6H12O6 + 6O2 Oxygen (O2) is a by-product of this reaction

7. 7 CO2 H2O CO2 H2O H2O CO2 CO2 H2O CO2 H2O CO2 H2O C6H12O6 + 6O2 6 molecules of carbon dioxide combine with 6 molecules of water to make one molecule of glucose and 6 molecules of oxygen

8. 9 Energy It takes energy to make CO2 combine with H2O This energy comes from sunlight The energy is absorbed and used by a substance called chlorophyll

9. carbon dioxide sunlight (energy) water water 9

10. 10 Chlorophyll Chlorophyll is a green coloredchemical It is present in the leaves of green plants The chlorophyll in the cells is packaged into tiny structures called chloroplasts The next slide shows a diagram of leaf cells with their chloroplasts

11. 11 Leaf cells with chloroplasts cell wall chloroplast nucleus cytoplasm vacuole

12. 12 All the reactions to combine CO2 and H2O take place in the chloroplast sunlight palisade cell of leaf water in the chloroplast, carbon dioxide and water combine to make sugar carbon dioxide

13. epidermis palisade cell ( photosynthesis) vessel (carries water) stoma (admits air) 13 Cell structure of a leaf The palisade cells are in the uppermost layers of the leaf

14. 14 Carbohydrates • Glucose is one example of a carbohydrate • Other examples are starch, sucrose and cellulose (in cell walls) • Carbohydrate molecules contain the elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen • Living organisms can easily change one carbohydrate into another

15. 15 What happens to the glucose? The glucose made by the chloroplast is either (a) used to provide energy for the chemical processes in the cell ( by respiration) (b)turned into sucrose and transported to other parts of the plant (c) turned into starch and stored in the cell as starch grains In darkness the starch is changed back into glucose and transported out of the cell

16. 16 fruits other sugars energy protein e.g. seed germination GLUCOSE cytoplasm starch cellulose cell walls storage e.g. starch in potato