In this article, you are going to learn the different stages of plants’ growth.
Growth in plants is the sum of developmental events that lead to an enlargement of the plant body. Plant growth is a series of identifiable events (sprouting, seedling, or flowering) in a quantitative or qualitative change in the whole structure of the plant. These changes do not occur at once but at different stages of the plant lifestyle.
These plant growth stages are:
- Germination
- Seedling
- Vegetative
- Budding
- Flowering
- Ripening
1. Germination: germination is the first stage or developmental event that takes place during the lifestyle of a plant. It is the process by which plant sprouts from a seed. This is common to angiosperms and gymnosperms. But, other plants such as ferns, mosses, and fungi that produce spores do grow when their spores germinate.
2. Seedling stage: this is the second stage or second developmental event in the plant growth cycle. A seedling is a young or baby plant growing out of a plant embryo from a plant seed or spores. The seedling consists of three main parts: the young embryonic root, young embryonic shoot, and young embryonic leaves.
3. Vegetative stage: a vegetative stage is a developmental event between the germination or seedling stage and flowering stage. During this period of growth, plants have started carrying out photosynthesis fully and accumulating foods that will be required for flowering and fruiting.
4. Budding: this is the developmental event in the plant growth cycle that leads to the enlargement of plants and production of outgrowth, which can later be used to grow a new plant.
5. Flowering stage: this is also a developmental event in plants’ growth cycle during which plants have started producing flowers and fruits. This is one of the common characteristics of a group of plants that are known as angiosperms. These angiosperms reproduce by means of flowers and fruits.
6. Ripening stage: when fruits are matured, they become sweeter, softer, and less green. This is period is known as the ripening stage. During this period, the fruits are ready to be harvested and used for consumption or seed collection.
These are the most common important processes or developmental events that take place during the plant growth cycle.
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How do plants grow from seeds?
You can grow the plant from seed by simply burying the seeds in a potting mix with soil equal to three times the thickness of the seed. It is important to read the instructions carefully from the seed package on how to plant the seeds. Make sure you also use a sterilized potting mix that is free from weeds seeds and pathogens.
Tip: learn more about how to grow plants from seeds
5 things Plants need to Grow
Plants require 5 essential things to grow and include: temperature, sunlight, moisture or water, nutrients, and air.
Water: water is an important factor for plant growth. All plants require water to absorb nutrients from the surrounding soil and into the plant system. Water is also required by plants to initiate photosynthesis (an important process that plants used to manufacture their own food).
Air: air is also an important factor that plants need to carry out other physiological activities such as photosynthesis, transpiration, and so on. Just like animals with oxygen, plants too inhale carbon dioxide for respiration and to synthesize foods for building cell structures and reproduction.
Nutrients: plant also needs nutrients to grow optimally. For instance, nitrogen helps plants grow by stimulating roots, leaves, and stem development. It also hastens the ripening of fruits. While calcium encourages the production of seeds and magnesium helps in the absorption of other nutrients.
Sunlight: sunlight is the main factor that is needed by plants to carry out photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process that takes place in plants where inorganic substances (water, sunlight, carbon dioxide, and minerals) are converted into useful organic substances that can be used by plants.
Temperature: temperature is another important thing that plants need to carry out some tasks. For instance, high temperature helps speed up the germination process. Additionally, the release of some plants’ nutrients from organic matter depends on temperature. Soil microflora requires high temperature to decompose these organic matters and make nutrients available to the plant.
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What causes plant growth?
There are basically four essential factors that cause plant growth. These factors include light, water, temperature, and nutrients. These factors are the ones responsible for controlling plant growth hormones, which in turn make plants grow faster or slower.
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Do plants have a life cycle?
Just like animals, plants have their own life cycle. The life cycle of plants alternates between diploid sporophyte and haploid gametophyte generations. And also alternate between sexual reproduction with gametes and asexual reproduction with spores.
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Can a plant have both flowers and cones?
Cones are produced by gymnosperms while flowers are produced by angiosperms. Angiosperms are considered more advanced than gymnosperms because of the possession of flowers, which is a distinguishing feature of angiosperms. You can only find cones on gymnosperms and only flowers on angiosperms. Bit, you may not find plants that have both cones and flowers.
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How do plants nourish themselves?
Plants nourish themselves through two main important sources and they include food synthesized from photosynthesis and nutrients that absorbed by plants’ roots from the soil.
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What stimulates plant growth?
Five main essential plant hormones stimulate plant growth. These hormones are auxins, cytokinins, gibberellin, ethylene, and abscisic acid.
How do hormones affect plant growth?
A human can affect plant growth either positively or negatively. Humans can affect plant growth positively when we applied fertilizer to plants and water. We can also affect plant growth negatively through deforestation and pollution.
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Conclusion
In this article, I looked at the different stages or processes of how a plant grows. I hope you will find the article useful. Let me know if you have any questions.
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