Plant Transport System

Welcome back and a happy new year to all!😄

Today  we will be covering  the Plant Transport System for Primary 5 Science.

In this summary, these are the few important things to take note of when doing your revision:

• the location and functions of the two transport tubes in the stems

• the direction of flow of water and food in plants

• the effects and things you will observe when you remove certain sections of the stem

Let's briefly recap these points.

Location and functions of the two transport tubes in the stems

Students often forget and get confused of where the water-carrying tubes and food-carrying tubes are when they are asked to identify them in the cross-section of the stem.

A simple way to remember is, WiFo (think of Wifi, but WiFo instead!)

WiFo:  Water Inside, Food Outside

Direction of flow of water and food in plants

Blue indicates Water and Mineral Salts

Red indicates Food made by leaves

Water and mineral salts are taken up by the roots from the soil and are transported to other parts of the plant for it to survive. Hence, water and mineral salts are always travelling UP.

Food made by the leaves during photosynthesis are transported to other parts of the plant such as the roots, fruits and flowers of the plant to be stored and use during a process known as respiration to provide energy for the plant. Hence, food travels DOWN.

Effects and observations when you remove certain sections of the stem

One of the most popular question in this topic is the effects of removing either the food-carrying tubes or both water and food-carrying tubes from a section of the stem.

When you remove the food-carrying tubes in a section of the stem, you will observe swelling at the stem above this cut section and slight shrinking of the stem below this cut section.

Why is this so?

When the food-carrying tubes are removed, food made by the leaves cannot be transported down to other parts of the plant and hence, will accumulate at the section just above the cut, causing the swelling of the stem.

Food that was below the cut section of the stem will continue be transported down, causing the section just below the cut to shrink.

But what happens if both water and food-carrying tubes are removed?

What if there are still leaves below the cut section of the stems?

To answer these questions further, you can download the summary by clicking the link below.

P5 Science - Plant Transport System Summary

If you have additional questions on this chapter, please feel free to comment on this post or email me your questions.

Hope this benefit you! Have a great weekend before school starts again!😀