Do vegetables roots absorb air or oxygen or not?
I read a article in Organic gardening many years ago that stuck in my head. It said that water without air was absorbed better by plant. Maybe that is true because it seems that plant roots only absorbe water through osmosis and no air! Now there are some water plants or trees like the Mangrove that develops special roots to absorbe oxygen from the water! A plant gives off carbon dioxide at night and uses oxygen at night but over the 24 hour period a plant will give off 10 times more oxygen then it takes in at night! This is interesting about water and air and what works better on plants when watering them. If you heat water the air expands and most is expelled. If water is boiled and cooled with a cover over it there is very little air in it! I don't think I am a air head!
Do vegetables roots absorb air or oxygen or not?
Simple answer is yes.
Plants with roots starved of oxygen will not thrive and even die. The same holds true for soil and hydroponic gardens. In soil hard compacted soils (clay based) need amendments to allow oxygen to reach the roots for adequate growth. In hydroponics the same holds true, oxygen in the water is critical. I have plants growing with the roots in water 24/7, no soil, just roots and water. These plants would die quickly, very quickly, if the air pump that supplies the oxygen to the roots malfunctioned.
hydroguy
Simple answer is yes.
Plants with roots starved of oxygen will not thrive and even die. The same holds true for soil and hydroponic gardens. In soil hard compacted soils (clay based) need amendments to allow oxygen to reach the roots for adequate growth. In hydroponics the same holds true, oxygen in the water is critical. I have plants growing with the roots in water 24/7, no soil, just roots and water. These plants would die quickly, very quickly, if the air pump that supplies the oxygen to the roots malfunctioned.
hydroguy
Not true. A couple of years ago, when Cincinnati was hit by a "dry hurricane" (sustained winds of over 74 mph) for about four hours, almost the entire county was without electricity for days. I had several peppers growing in a DWC system - they didn't suffer at all, and I didn't have any electricity for three days, then only a bit for another two. (A generator I used to keep the fridge, freezer, computer, pumps, lights, etc. operating for a few minutes each.) The plants didn't grow but neither did they die!hydroguy wrote:I have plants growing with the roots in water 24/7, no soil, just roots and water. These plants would die quickly, very quickly, if the air pump that supplies the oxygen to the roots malfunctioned.
hydroguy
Mike
I have a closed container with water in it and a plant coming out a small hole at the top. This plant has been in there for 4 years and has not died! I have about 6 inches of water and only add it every few months!There is no dirt only water. I always thught the leaves make the air from the sun though photo synthesis. I cannot figure how the roots would absorb any air! Certain plants have nitrogen on their roots but that is not because they absorbe any air! Trees and plants that grow in marshes and swamp have a special root that can absorbe air from the water but that is a special case like the Mangrove! I am really confused on this one! Hope someone can help!
Mike, I lived in Covington during that storm and had a great many plants in ebb/flow, didn't lose a single plant either. Quickly is a relative term my friend. Remember the main question in this post "do plants absorb oxygen through their roots." I'll stand by my original answer of yes they do. Dissolved oxygen is one or main premises of why hydroponics grow faster than natural dirt grows.wordwiz wrote:Not true. A couple of years ago, when Cincinnati was hit by a "dry hurricane" (sustained winds of over 74 mph) for about four hours, almost the entire county was without electricity for days. I had several peppers growing in a DWC system - they didn't suffer at all, and I didn't have any electricity for three days, then only a bit for another two. (A generator I used to keep the fridge, freezer, computer, pumps, lights, etc. operating for a few minutes each.) The plants didn't grow but neither did they die!hydroguy wrote:I have plants growing with the roots in water 24/7, no soil, just roots and water. These plants would die quickly, very quickly, if the air pump that supplies the oxygen to the roots malfunctioned.
hydroguy
Mike
bobberman, mangroves and other wetland plants probably need that special root because marshes and peat bogs are very low in oxygen. As a matter of fact, they can be so void of O2 and microbes, that mummified bodies have been found in peat bogs that are hundreds of years old. Plants will adapt and find a way to grow in whatever conditions the are in. Of course some conditions will not be prone enough to maintaining life, but if it's possible, the plant will adapt.
hydro,
I don't deny that plant roots need oxygen. I've got a couple of aeroponic and and three DWC grows happening now. I've seen what can happen when airstones get clogged (not pretty!) The part of your post I disagreed with was "These plants would die quickly, very quickly, if the air pump that supplies the oxygen to the roots malfunctioned." I would not consider 4-5 days "quickly."
Mike
I don't deny that plant roots need oxygen. I've got a couple of aeroponic and and three DWC grows happening now. I've seen what can happen when airstones get clogged (not pretty!) The part of your post I disagreed with was "These plants would die quickly, very quickly, if the air pump that supplies the oxygen to the roots malfunctioned." I would not consider 4-5 days "quickly."
Mike
The air pumped through the water may do something to the water that cause the water to be cleaned of bad oganisms ! I see where they shoot water into the air which oxidizes it to clean it of bad things! Maybe the air is making the water better not that the roots are using the air itself. The air may be like a catalyst for the roots!
From what I have been rerading about roots and oxygen the top of the root seems to absorb oxygen! The bottom of the root absorbes water . If this is true I can understand why its better to water most plant trays from the bottom! The oxygen comes from the air it seems and not out of the water. The roots at the top have to be in the damp soil if they are water logged the plant will die which seems to me that the air collected from the tops roots does not come from the water!! Am I on the right track?
I'm not really sure where you are getting your information, but is seem very incomplete and confused.
All cellular activity is aqueous in nature so where ever air/oxygen comes into contact with water or sap it will enter the plants system. The sap moving down from above does so slowly so it is very important that the water entering the roots has oxygen in it (there is no pumping mechanism in plants to move oxygenated sap). The very tips of roots grow rapidly and thus use a lot of oxygen). The front couple of inches of roots contain short lived root hairs through which most of the water and nutrient absorption takes place. Some oxygen must be dissolved in that water for the roots to carry out respiration so that they can stay alive. No oxygen equals dead root hairs, eventually. Root hairs have no protective covering like older root sections or stems/leaves so they are very efficient at absorbing both water and gasses (again, the gasses are dissolved in the water). The root hairs die if they dry out, so you cannot separate water uptake from oxygen uptake.
Decaying organic matter in the soil removes oxygen so root death from waterlogging is faster in soil than in a clean hydroponic environment. With certain plants grown in water culture I have seen the roots stop growing at the depth where the oxygen level declines past a critical level. This is also rarely seen in plants with thin roots because of the efficiency of absorption (surface area to volume ratio). Generally though the perturbation caused by adding water to such a system mixes oxygen through out the container.
For those plants living in waterlogged organic soil there are several adaptation to oxygenate the sap getting to the roots. These include hollow stems of many marsh plants like Spartina spp., the knees found on bald cypress, the prop roots found on red mangrove and the pneumatophors found on black mangrove. In many cases these adaptations (hollow tubes) actually oxgenate the soil water around the roots, which is an easier way to go than to try to get oxygen to the root hairs internally through several inches of solid root.
In order to provide oxygen to the living cambium and phloem tissue of the stem, plants produce lenticels, most obviously seen as the little corky spots on smooth green new growth before it is old enough for bark to form, and the 'spots' on corks. So it can be seen that the plant needs to bring in oxygen at all levels from root tips on up.
All cellular activity is aqueous in nature so where ever air/oxygen comes into contact with water or sap it will enter the plants system. The sap moving down from above does so slowly so it is very important that the water entering the roots has oxygen in it (there is no pumping mechanism in plants to move oxygenated sap). The very tips of roots grow rapidly and thus use a lot of oxygen). The front couple of inches of roots contain short lived root hairs through which most of the water and nutrient absorption takes place. Some oxygen must be dissolved in that water for the roots to carry out respiration so that they can stay alive. No oxygen equals dead root hairs, eventually. Root hairs have no protective covering like older root sections or stems/leaves so they are very efficient at absorbing both water and gasses (again, the gasses are dissolved in the water). The root hairs die if they dry out, so you cannot separate water uptake from oxygen uptake.
Decaying organic matter in the soil removes oxygen so root death from waterlogging is faster in soil than in a clean hydroponic environment. With certain plants grown in water culture I have seen the roots stop growing at the depth where the oxygen level declines past a critical level. This is also rarely seen in plants with thin roots because of the efficiency of absorption (surface area to volume ratio). Generally though the perturbation caused by adding water to such a system mixes oxygen through out the container.
For those plants living in waterlogged organic soil there are several adaptation to oxygenate the sap getting to the roots. These include hollow stems of many marsh plants like Spartina spp., the knees found on bald cypress, the prop roots found on red mangrove and the pneumatophors found on black mangrove. In many cases these adaptations (hollow tubes) actually oxgenate the soil water around the roots, which is an easier way to go than to try to get oxygen to the root hairs internally through several inches of solid root.
In order to provide oxygen to the living cambium and phloem tissue of the stem, plants produce lenticels, most obviously seen as the little corky spots on smooth green new growth before it is old enough for bark to form, and the 'spots' on corks. So it can be seen that the plant needs to bring in oxygen at all levels from root tips on up.