bjones
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Plants have the ability to produce both oxygen and carbon dioxide, but circumstances of day or night are not a factor in carbon dioxide production. The primary process plants use to create energy is photosynthesis, which creates oxygen as a waste product. However, plants cannot use the energy created by photosynthesis without a secondary process called respiration, which uses oxygen and creates carbon dioxide as a waste product.
During photosynthesis, plants use carbon dioxide, water and sunlight to create a form of sugar called glucose. Glucose is what plants process to get their energy, but they don’t have to use it right away. The glucose is stored in the cells of the plant until it needs to use it.
Photosynthesis only creates glucose. It does not allow the plant to extract the energy from the glucose. The process that breaks down glucose to get energy is called respiration. Plant respiration is not like animal respiration except that both forms require oxygen and give off carbon dioxide as a waste product.
Unlike animal respiration, which is just a means to get oxygen into the body and carbon dioxide out, plant respiration is a chemical process whereby the energy is released from glucose. This chemical process is very similar to what occurs when a piece of wood burns, and it occurs in plants during both the day and the night.
Plants absorb oxygen from the air and the ground by their leaves and roots. The oxygen combines with glucose to release energy, and it creates carbon dioxide and water as waste products.
Although night and day are not a factor in plant respiration, it has been discovered that the amount of respiration that takes place grows as the temperature gets higher. Photosynthesis also grows at higher temperatures, but it tapers out at a certain temperature whereas respiration continues to grow. For tomato plants, that magic temperature is 96° F. This means that at 96° F, tomato plants will quickly use up all their stored energy because they produce much less glucose than they burn.
 Posted 4793 day ago
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