Plant Growth Stages - How Plants Grow

Plant growth stages mirror other living things with a beginning, reproductive, and ending stage, except some plants have an additional dormant stage. The terms for these stages are: Vegetative, Reproductive, Senescence, and Dormancy.

Starting with the seed, a plant seed is similar to a fertilized egg. It contains a food store for the new plant life, and a protective outer shell. In the first stage of plant growth, the Vegetative stage, the seedling absorbs moisture and nutrients from the inner food store inside the seed. When the plant has absorbed the seed foods and starts growing the root stem, and shoot that becomes leaves, it penetrates the seed's protective wall and begins growth. The root grows down into the warm moist earth, while the shoot rises upwards towards the sunlight and warm air. Upon emergence, leaves unfold and the roots continue to grow and spread. This continues until the plant seedling is fully developed with extensive roots, root hairs and leaves. The roots and leaves absorb moisture and nutrients from soil, water, and air.

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The next of the plant growth stages would be a Reproductive stage. At this point, when the seedling has matured, it will produce a flower that has either male or female parts, or both. The flower contains pollen, which is then transferred to the egg part of the flower and a transformation into new seeds, or pods containing seeds, begins to grow to maturity. The pollination can occur with the help of wind, vibrations, insects like bees, and animals. Or, humans can artificially breed and cross breed plants through pollination efforts or splicing branches to other plants. The benefit to pollination of seeds is that gene diversity can occur, which may help survival.

Plant Growth Stages - How Plants Grow

A third growth stage occurs after new seeds or pods have been produced and spread to make new plant life. This would be Senescence, or old age in plants. This can be seen in the fall as the leaves on certain deciduous trees change color before dropping off. Plants show deterioration similar to other organisms in old age, such as damage from free radicals and telomere shortening.

Another growth stage that is different than Senescence is the Dormancy stage. In Dormancy, the plant goes into a state of hibernation, allowing it to survive intense winter weather and revive in the springtime with new growth, without going through a seed stage. This is easily seen in trees, that drop leaves in the fall, and the sap runs up, then the tree remains in a dormant stage until new buds come out in the warmer spring weather, to run the entire cycle year after year until the tree eventually dies. Dormancy can give plants an edge because they can build on prior year's growth instead of starting over from seed. This gives them a competitive edge in competition for sunlight and soil, as they are bigger.

Plant growth stages are similar to growth and deterioration of other organisms, all part of the chain of life.

Plant Growth Stages - How Plants Grow

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The Effect of Caffeine on Plant Growth

The effect of caffeine on plant growth has been studied by the experts for some time now. People believe that exposure to caffeine would cause the plant to grow at a much faster rate and that this is a positive effect for plants. But this is just a myth and make-believe, not to mention, a total waste of perfectly good caffeine. While it does not do anything for the growth speed of the plants, research is still on progress about the real effect of caffeine on plant growth.

There are a lot of theories regarding that subject but nothing in particular seems to be the real deal. All are just theories that lack evidential support and therefore cannot be considered as factual truth about the effect of caffeine on plant growth.

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One theory mentioned above says that the caffeine can help in the growth of the plant. The believers of this myth argue that the potassium found in caffeine helps the plant to grow faster. As this theory can be true and that caffeine can possibly help plants grow, there is still no factual evidence that it really was the caffeine that helped the growth and not other elements present. It really is hard to say without eliminating all possibilities.

Another theory is that caffeine's effect on plant growth can make the plants abnormal and retarded. That they make the growth of the plants slow down and also make plants tend to be small in size, abnormally small in size. So again we have a group of people who believe that their theory is the right one. They claim that the caffeine added to the plants stop the plants from growing. There really is no telling whether what they claim is true or not.

There are a lot of elements to consider in finding out the effect of caffeine on plant growth. It would require controlled environment, day and night observation, and total focus to the subject. The weather is also a factor and the environment on which the plant was grown. There are factors and elements to take in consideration first before even attempting experimentation with caffeine and plants.

The effect of caffeine on plant growth is really a hard one to call. It can be that the plants are growing slower because of the caffeine and it also can be a possibility that the potassium and phosphorus can cause the plant to grow much faster.

The Effect of Caffeine on Plant Growth

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