A common question asked by many gardeners is, “Do plants eat sunlight?” The short answer is, “No.” But there are some reasons why they do not. All plants need light to absorb carbon dioxide and use it as a form of fuel for photosynthesis. They cannot function if there were no sunlight.
One reason that carnivorous plants don’t need sunlight is that they don’t have a green leaf canopy above them. In order for photosynthesis to occur, the canopy has to be blocking the light from penetrating. Yes, carnivores do consume meat. So, they can certainly take up the nutrition derived from plants. But plants do not process food the same way.
Photosynthesis is the basis of all life on earth. The plants need carbon dioxide to absorb light and convert it into glucose, which is their primary source of energy. If the canopy is blocked, then they can not photosynthesize.
Photosynthesis also occurs at night under low levels of sunlight, called dihydrophyll. When the concentration of carbon dioxide is very low, this process does not occur. Under these conditions, carbon dioxide is concentrated in the soil. The plants use this carbon dioxide as food. When they need to extract the glucose, they photosynthesize.
Plants are not the only living things that eat sunlight. Some animals, including reptiles, fish, amphibians and mammals, eat living things that absorb sunlight. For example, the goat has a thick coat of hair that absorbs sunlight. The lizard’s tail is made up of a thick band of melanin that absorbs sunlight. All of these animals are classified as “entary” because they live in the outdoors.
Most plants have photosynthesis, but not all photosynthesis are the same. Photosynthesis is the conversion of food to starch, which is energy. One form of photosynthesis is Photosystems, which involves the use of three separate forms of energy to convert food into starch. These are all single-celled algae called phytoplanktons that do not form glucose, and land plants.
The other type of photosynthetic process is photoheterotrophic, which means that plants get energy by using the existing sunlight to produce carbon compounds, which then become the food for other plants. During daylight, Photosystems photosynthesize by using light and carbon compounds in the sunlight. At night, Photosystems that use light from the UV rays of the sun to produce oxygen use the darkness for their photosynthesis process. They are the reason why plants grow in places where there is no sunlight, such as in the ocean.
During the Photosynthetic reaction, certain compounds are broken down and stored as carbon. Some of those compounds are called glucose, while others, such as fructose or glycogen, are used by other plants for fuel. That is why your body functions as if you are burning up calories by consuming glucose.
When Photosynthesis is going on, the plants are getting all the energy they need. To make sure that they do not run out of food before the process is complete, plants use a storage system to reserve the glucose for future use. It is that reserve that allows plants to use oxygen in the water, release the carbon dioxide for oxidation, and store energy. In the process of Photosynthesis, the CO2 is removed from the water and in the process of oxidation, the sugar in the leaves is converted into starch, which is the food that we eat.
Since plants need sunlight to Photosynthesize, they go outdoors in order to obtain it. When sunlight is unavailable, plants must go to a place where they will be protected from extreme weather conditions, such as trees. However, plants need light to produce chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is a green, composite substance composed of hydrogen and oxygen. It is the basis for the growth of the plants. It is also one of the reasons why plants look green.
A lot of research has been done in order to find out if plants do eat glucose molecules. A lot of research points to the fact that the chlorophyll in the leaves absorbs the glucose molecules and turns it into starch. So the more you have chlorophyll in your plant cells, the more glucose molecules you have in the leafy parts of your plant. Then when the plant is Photosynthesizing, it pulls carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it. The more carbon dioxide it stores, the more it can grow.
The research indicates that plants do eat glucose molecules. However, they do not eat it in the simple way we might think of eating a carrot or a root. In fact, the process of Photosynthesis requires lots of energy. Even though plants cannot use their entire energy potential for Photosynthesis, they do extract the majority of it. In the end, they make food from the glucose molecules they have extracted. As we can see from all the information above, the chlorophyll in your plants is just an extra component that they are using to boost their energy potential.