Photosynthesis

Plants have the amazing ability to harvest energy from the sun using chlorophyll and convert it into carbohydrates. These carbohydrates serve as chief energy source for almost all living beings in the world, including plants themselves.

Photosynthesis is the process through which the food is prepared by the plant from chlorophyll, carbon dioxide (CO₂) and water (H₂O) in the presence of sunlight. The chemical involve in the photosynthesis is –

6CO₂ + 12H₂O ———- C₆H₁₂O₆+6H₂O+6O₂

Most organisms that utilize photosynthesis to produce oxygen use visible light to do so, although there are plants which use infrared radiation too. Photosynthesis occurs in Chloroplats of plants and it done by Chlorophyll pigment. Magnesium is found in the chlorophyll of plant leave and in the nucleus of the chlorophyll on atom  of the magnesium  exists. The chemical substance chloroplast is called the nucleus of the photosynthesis.

Factors influencing photosynthesis

Light

Mainly, violet, blue and red light portion of sunlight is used for photosynthesis. Further, photosynthetic activity is maximum in low intensity light; as the intensity of the light increases photosynthetic activity decreases.

Temperature

As the process of photosynthesis is the complex chemical reaction of the various enzymes and these enzymes only being  normal to participate  in the chemical reaction up to a moderate and optimum temperature. Thus photosynthetic activity increase from 0°C to 37°C but 37°C onwards such activity decreases abruptly.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂)

Up to a definite level on increasing the concentration of CO₂, photosynthetic activity increases, but after the certain limit, the increase of its concentration does not affect the photosynthetic activity.

Water (H₂O)

Due to the lack of water, the photosynthetic activity abruptly decreases because of steep fall of the rate of evaporation. In fact, the pores of the plant leaves become partially closed and ultimately the translocation of CO₂ is disrupted through the leaves.

Why Peepal tree releases Oxygen all the time?

Most plants largely uptake Carbon dioxide (CO²)and release oxygen during the day (photosynthesis) and uptake oxygen and release CO² during the night (respiration). Some plants such as Peepal tree can uptake CO² during the night as well because of their ability to perform a type of photosynthesis called Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM). However, they don’t release large amounts of oxygen during the night. CAM is one of the three types of photosynthesis pathways occurring commonly in plants; the other two being C3 and C4 pathways.