Phloem transport
Plants are made up of many things but phloem and xylem are the main parts. Xylem takes water and nutrients (minerals) up into the plant from the roots. Phloem carries energy (sugar) from the leaves to the rest of the plant.
Today I have helped set up an experiment to see whether a new insecticide (stuff that kills bugs that are not good for the plants) is sucked up by the phloem or not. We worked with capsicum plants. This is very fiddly and finicky work. But it has to be done right and with patience otherwise the experiment might not work.
What do all those cords/tubes do? Will the plants have fruit?
ReplyDeleteThese plants do have fruit - capsicums - but we are looking at killing insects that want to eat our plants! So inside those little tubes are a solution/mix of poison (a natural ingredient, which means it comes from other plants). And we test to see if the plant sucks up the poison in their leaves. And if they do and the insects come and nibble on the plant, they die.
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