Chapter 32 Plant Growth

and Development

How Do Seeds Germinate?

Germination is the resumption of growth
after a time of arrested embryonic
development
Environmental factors influence germination
Spring rains provide the water amounts
necessary to swell and rupture the seed coat
(taking in water is imbibition)
Oxygen moves in and allows the embryo to
switch to aerobic metabolism
Increase temperatures and number of daylight
hours

Continue
Repeated cell divisions produce a
seedling with a primary root.

Genetic Programs,
Environmental
Cues
Patterns of germination and

development have a heritable basis

dictated by a plants genes
Early cell divisions may result in
unequal distribution of cytoplasm
Cytoplasmic differences trigger variable
gene expression, which may results in
variations in hormone synthesis
Even though all cells have the same genes,
it is the selective expression of those
genes that results in cell differentiation.

Growth and Development

Growth and development are
necessary for plants to survive
Growth is defined as an increase in the
number, size, and volume of cells
Development is the emergence of
specialized, morphologically different
body parts

Plant Hormones
Plant hormones have central roles in
the selective gene expression
underlying cell differentiation and
patterns of development.

Types of Plant Hormones

Gibberellins: Promote stem elongation
Help buds and seeds break dormancy
and resume growth in the spring.
In some species, they influence the
flowering process.

Cytokinins: stimulate cell division in

root and shoot meristems, where they
are most abundant; they are used
commercially to prolong the life of
stored vegetables and cut flowers

Grapes (Gibberellins)

With

Without

Continue (Plant Hormones)

Auxins: affect lengthening

of stems and
coleoptiles (the protective cylinder that
covers and protects the tender leaves
during germination)

May participate in growth responses to

light and gravity.
Indoleacetic acid (IAA) is applied to fruit
trees to promote uniform flowering, set the
fruit, and encourage synchronous
development of fruit.
Synthetic auxins (such as 2,4-D) are used
as herbicides

Auxins Picture

Continue (Plant Hormones)

Abscisic Acid (ABA)inhibits

cell growth,
helps prevent water loss (by promoting
stomata closure), and promoting seed
and bud dormancy.
Ethylene stimulates the ripening of
fruit and is used commercially for this
purpose.
Other less well known hormones
trigger flowering and inhibit the growth
of lateral buds (apical dominance)

What are Tropisms?

A plant tropisms is a growth response
Evidenced by a turning of a root or shoot
toward or away from an environmental
stimulus
Hormones mediate the shifts in rates at
which different cells grow and elongate
to cause the overall response

Types of Tropisms
Gravitropisms: is the growth response
to gravity shoots grow up, roots grow
down.
Auxins, together with a growthinhibiting
hormone, may play role in promoting, or
inhibiting, growth in strategic regions
Statoliths, which are unbound starch grains
in the plastids, respond to gravity and may
trigger the redistribution of auxin

Roots moving down toward

gravity

Continue (Tropisms)
Phototropisms: is a growth response
to light
Bending toward the light is caused by
elongation of cells (auxin stimulation on
the side of the palnt not exposed to light).
Flavoprotein, a pigment molecule
probably plays a role because of its
capacity to absorb blue wavelengths of
light

Continue (Tropisms)
Thigmotropism is shift in growth
triggered by physical contact with
surrounding objects.
Prevalent in climbing vines and in the
tendrils that support some plants
Auxin and ethylene may have roles in
the response

Response to Mechanical
Stress
Response to the mechanical stress of
strong winds explain why plants
grown at higher mountain elevations
are more stubby than their
counterparts at lower elevations
Human interventions such as shaking
can inhibit plant growth.

How Do Plants Known When to

Flower?
Phytochrome: Alarm button for plants
Biological Clocks are internal timemeasuring mechanisms that adjust daily
and seasonal patterns of growth,
development, and reproduction
Phytochrome a blue-green pigment, is alarm
button for some biological clocks in plants
Phytochrome- can absorb both read and farred wavelengths with different results.
When is the pigment activated?
When is the pigment inactive?

Continue
Some plants activities occur regularly
in cycles of 24 hours (circadian
rhythms) even when environmental
conditions remain constant

Flowering A case of
photoperiodism
Photoperiodism is a biological
response to a change in relative
length of daylight and darkness in a
24-hour cycle; this resetting of the
biological clocks is necessary to
make seasonal adjustments

Continue
The flowering process is keyed to changes
in daylength throughout the year.
Short-day plants: flower in late summer or
early autumn when daylength becomes
shorter
Example: Poinsettias

Long-day plants: flower in the spring as

daylength becomes longer
Example: Spinach

Day-Neutral Plants: flower when they are

mature enough to do so
Example: Roses

Senescence
The dropping of leaves, flowers, fruits
is called abscission
Senescence: is the sum total of the
processes leading to the death of
plant parts or the whole plant
Decrease of daylight hours trigger the
reduction of auxin
Cells in abscission zones produce
ethylene which causes cells to deposit
suberin in their walls

Entering and Breaking

Dormancy
Dormancy occurs
in autumn when

daylight shortens and growth stops in

many trees and nonwoody perennials
it will not resume until spring
Strong cues for dormancy include in
short days, cold nights, and dry,
nitrogen-deficient soil.
Dormancy has great adaptive value in
preventing plant growth on occasional
warm autumn days only to be killed by
later frost.

Vernalization
Vernalization is the stimulation of
flowering only after plants have been
exposed to lower temperatures
(winter).
Deliberately exposing seeds to lower
temperature to stimulate flowering
the next season is common
agricultural practice.

Breaking Dormancy
Dormancy is broken by milder
temperatures, rains, and nutrients.
It probably involves gibberellins and
abscisiic acid, and require exposure
to specific periods of low
temperatures.