Plant Manufacture?

Light is the basis of it all really. It provides energy for photosynthesis which produces sugar, from CO2 and water. The plant uses the sugar for energy in its cells. This energy allows the plant's cells to perform all sorts of tasks like dividing for growth, protein production etc. The dividing is how the plant gets bigger basically.
However, the light isn't all it needs, a lot of important cellular processes require nutrients the plant needs to absorb from its environment. So that is where the fertilisers come in providing the plant with all the nutrients it needs to make stuff, or let certain mechanisms work.
That is the basics of it all there is A LOT more to it, but that is an outline. If you want to talk molecular level then it gets quite complex, and there will be lots of individual things to tackle. Even talking just about processes such as sugar transport in plants, isn't super easy.


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Fishly said:

How do some rays of light, a bit of carbon, and some fertilizers turn into plant tissue? Can someone explain in layman's terms the process at the molecular level?

It's just hard for me to wrap my head around. I put a fraction of a pinch of ferts in the tank, and somehow, I get several inches of plant growth a week later. How?

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It does seem like the end result is greater than the sum of its parts, doesn't it! AQUAPROS and a few others have some cool YouTube videos that help to visualize what's going on.
Here's one.

Opare gave a nice succinct answer because really, it staggers me too when I think about it. What other living thing in the world can make energy out of sunlight, except plants?? they don't walk around, or eat food, or verbalize, or do a lot of other basic things we think of living things doing, but they make food from light. It's so awesome.

I think we should all worship PLANTS.

JJ09 said:

Opare gave a nice succinct answer because really, it staggers me too when I think about it. What other living thing in the world can make energy out of sunlight, except plants?? they don't walk around, or eat food, or verbalize, or do a lot of other basic things we think of living things doing, but they make food from light. It's so awesome.



I think we should all worship PLANTS.

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You know what also makes energy from sunlight, aquarists other favourite organisms, algae There are a few other photoautrophic organisms like Cyanobacteria which some of us know too well.
How a lot of these individual reactions work and explaining them will get quite complicated as there are a lot of different enzymes involved. I'm just learning the specifics of photosynthesis in school, like how the different photosystems (pigments) work to absorb light.




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Yah, I thought of algae & cyano too, right after I hit 'publish'