Life's a Gas - if you're a plant

Three handouts were available to visitors to the stand this year.

How can we squeeze more from photosynthesis?

The majority of life on Earth is sustained by photosynthesis - plants’ ability to trap the energy in sunlight and use it to power the conversion of water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugar. It is the primary route for converting energy from the sun into chemical energy stored in molecules such as sugars, starches and oils. This stored energy can then be released, as needed, to power growth and development. Photosynthesis annually produces 100,000 million tons of plant material (much of it made only from carbon dioxide and water) and a similar quantity of oxygen. It consumes about 300 trillion k/cal per year (or 30 times the energy consumption of all the machines on the planet), but even so traps only 0.02% of the Sun’s energy that falls on the Earth....read entire handout.

Plants making fertiliser from fresh air?

The fundamental importance of plants to life on Earth reflects their success in using gases; as raw materials for growth and to store energy, to control their development and reactions to their environment, and to defend themselves against attack by pests and pathogens. Even where plants are unable to directly use the gas nitrogen, an essential component of living organisms, they enlist the help of microbes to convert it into a chemical form they can use.....read entire handout.

Command and control with gases?!

While nitrogen is an essential element in plant nutrition it also has an important role in plants’ internal communication systems as one half of a gas molecule, nitric oxide, that is involved in many plant signalling systems. This role for nitric oxide is remarkable because it is a highly toxic chemical that quickly damages living tissues and yet scientists have recently found that the controlled production of nitric oxide is important in controlling plant growth, development, and defence.....read entire handout.