Learning how to water plants to increase growth in pots, container or garden - especially how to water roots and tubers. Specialities: root growth or tuber growth of lawns, fuchsias, geraniums, dahlias and begonias.

14 December 2010

Don't Confuse 'Phytochrome' with 'Photosynthesis'

I realise that all this talk about phyto-this and phyto-that might be more than a little confusing, especially if you have no previous knowledge of biology. I would really like to go through it all and explain it to you (at least as far as I understand it), but it takes up an awful lot of space.

Although this blog is about growing plants successfully, I feel that a deeper knowledge of how plants operate is not just USEFUL but ESSENTIAL in achieving this. Of course, you don't need to absorb every detail, but I think it's good to know where things are coming from. And you can always do some of your own research - there's loads of readable information on the Internet. Even though some of this could present a more accurate picture, by selecting those web pages you can get on with, you can learn more about plants and how they grow. Don't try to take it all in; just have a look; it will all make sense eventually.

By the way, Phytochrome is a blue PIGMENT which the plant uses as a photoreceptor with which it can determine light quality and also probably day length. Photosynthesis, on the other hand, is a PROCESS - one in which a plant uses green chlorophyll to manufacture the sugar glucose.

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