Question

Generally, people water their plants with 100% H2O—no solutes added. What sort of environment does this create around the roots of the plant? hypotonic, hypertonic, isotonic? . Briefly explain why plants generally thrive in this sort of environment. Now, Imagine that you are new to gardening and decide that adding extra fertilizer to your plants will make them grow fast, but after a month your plants are wilting, pale and eventually die. Which was the effect of the extra fertilizer on your plant’s roots environment?

Answer 1

Adding 100% water without any solute to the plant roots create a hypotonic environment around the roots of plants. This is because the added pure water is taken up by the roots of the plant as the cells within the plant have more solute in comparison to outside environment. So, osmosis occurs and the solvent i.e water moves from outside environment into the cells.

Due to addition of pure water without any solute content, more amount of water is absorbed by the roots of the plants. This phenomenon avoids any wilting of the plants and thus provide a suitable environment for the plants to survive. Thus, plants are able to thrive in this type of environment.

Excess addition of fertilizers provide a hypertonic condition around the plants which leads to deficiency of available water in the roots of the plants. Excess amount of phosphorus and nitrogen are introduced by the addition of excess fertilizer leading to wilting of the plants, thus hampering the survival of the plants.