For Plants, Oxygen Equals Energy During Cellular Respiration

For Plants, Oxygen Equals Energy During Cellular Respiration

Oxygen is directly involved in the production of energy plants need for metabolic processes. Plants acquire glucose through photosynthesis. But they need to break glucose down into more complex molecules for the multiple functions of a healthy plant. That takes place during cellular respiration.

What is Plant Respiration?

We tend to think of respiration as a plant breathing, but it’s far more complex than that. Respiration is not the stage of a plant’s life when it’s giving us the oxygen we need to breathe.

During respiration, a plant converts the sugars created during photosynthesis into energy. At the cellular level, plant respiration creates energy for all types of cellular processes. That energy is called ATP (adenosine triphosphate) and fuels most of a plant’s cellular processes. (We also are fueled by ATP and it is essential for life. Messages between nerve cells are facilitated with ATP. It is a neurotransmitter. It makes RNA possible and our bodies convert ATP into another nucleotide to create DNA. Oxygen is a necessary precursor to ATP.)

Respiration happens both during daylight and darkness. But only during daylight, in the presence of sunlight (even on a cloudy winter day) do plants photosynthesize.

The glucose produced from photosynthesis is broken down into multiple enzymes. There are over 20 distinct enzymes directly involved in the respiration process. Each plays a crucial role in converting glucose into energy. 

And respiration of excess oxygen and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere isn’t the only way plants get rid of waste products. Plants are constantly exchanging nutrients, including oxygen, with soil.

Plant Root Respiration and Your Fields

The major players in plant root respiration and oxygen exchange with the soil are the tiny root hairs. Root hairs greatly expand the root surface area. They allow more oxygen and other nutrients to diffuse into the soil and more to be taken up by the plant from the soil. This is a constant process and is the foundation for the carbon cycle.

Root hairs are tiny conduits for an efficient gas exchange. That’s because they’re in direct contact with more air pockets in the soil than the larger root. Those tiny hairs, many of which can only be seen with a microscope, do their part to support respiration for the entire plant.

They enhance the root’s ability to absorb oxygen. That means they support the overall health and optimal growth of the plant, even during extreme weather conditions.

How to Optimize Oxygen and Root Respiration in Your Fields

To enhance plant health and productivity, farmers must optimize the root hair oxygen exchange. There are several strategies to achieve the maximum crop nutrient profile and yield.

  • Cover crops such as clover or radishes improve soil structure and aeration by creating channels in the soil for their roots, the roots of your cash crops, and storage for oxygen molecules.
  • Use drip irrigation or other efficient watering systems. Avoid waterlogging soil because that dramatically reduces available oxygen.
  • Add organic matter. Clay, sandy, and silt soil all benefit from additional SOM. You also increase microbial activity, which increases nutrient cycling.
  • Charged biochar added to your soil (you don’t need to incorporate it by tilling) improves soil porosity, aeration, and soil structure. 
  • Manage your soil pH. Most plants and microbes prefer a pH of 6.0–7.0. Maintaining that level of pH will enhance root hair function and oxygen availability.
  • Avoid soil compaction by minimizing the use of heavy machinery. Especially on wet fields!
  • Grow deep-rooted cover crops that break up compacted soil layers.
  • Be kind to beneficial microbes and mycorrhizal fungi. Avoid fungicides and pesticides.

When you plant strips of native wildflowers and grasses around your fields, you attract beneficial insects. As your soil oxygen levels increase and soil structure improves, you’ll have fewer weed problems, less insect and disease issues, and healthier plants.

You can create a more oxygen rich environment for plant roots (and the tiny root hairs that do so much of the work), promote healthy and more productive crops, and improve the overall economic and physical health of your ag operation.

It’s all about making an environment conducive to the carbon cycle, from photosynthesis to respiration and back to photosynthesis. Oxygen is the limiting factor for productive crops, and the amount of oxygen available to root cells matters. For quality crops, roots need an abundance of oxygen so they can efficiently burn the sugars produced through photosynthesis.

Are you interested in the impact adequate oxygen levels can have on suppressing Phythoptera in your fields? Contact our team at STBiologicals.com and learn more about the benefits of regenerative ag practices to your farm. We’re here to help you succeed. When soil speaks, we listen.

For Plants, Oxygen Equals Energy During Cellular Respiration

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