What do plants do at night?

[Jim]

Plants use oxygen at night.

What else do they do in the hours of darkness?

Do they use iron thats in the WC?
Do they take up other ferts?


I'm interested in this. If anyone has any comments or links to something to read....I'd be much appreciative.

 

[niru]

What I have seen is that the upper leaves near the tips tend to close after/near light OFF time, perhaps after the plants have made enough "food" by photosynthesis during light ON period. Also, the observable growth is seen during the night time. This was particularly prominent when I once did a 3 day blackout, after which the plants had grown considerably.

So my guess is that the plants use their food during the night to do wear-and-tear repair and for growing (thus cell repair & increase). I recall reading somewhere that the Calvin cycle is most active during night so that the energy generated during day and the organic carbon collected in the process (sugar/carbohydrate making) are utilized in actually building newer cells & filling them with useful stuff. There was some research in determining the use of O2 taken in by plants during their normal respiration, but cant recollect the source of this info right now..

Hopefully experts will guide us through.

 

[Fred Dulley]

An insight from Clive
viewtopic.php?p=135848#p135848

And a bit more
viewtopic.php?p=112180#p112180

 

[Gary Nelson]

I think mine dress up in black cotton wool and have a party, as they always seem to still have black fluffy bits attached to them in the morning when the lights come on!