How Does Your Garden Grow?

1. I've noticed that our plant hasn't grown as much as the other plants in the garden. However, over time, this changes the biomass, or the total mass of an organism's volume or total area of the entire plant, which gets bigger as more is added as it gets bigger. It also seems to have trouble getting this, I've noticed that the plants around our brussels sprouts have taken up the majority of the sun, so it receives less energy. It has also shown that the oxygen from the plant comes from the water taken in. The water is also split to receive the oxygen. So, photosynthesis is very difficult to do this with little sun. This is makes it so the brussels sprouts grow slower than a lot of the other plants in the garden. This has made it so cell division (mitosis) down in speed from mitosis. This makes it so the germination is slowed down. 
2. Our plant is using "PEPC" and "RUBISCO," and it makes protein synthesis. Also, there is a signal that goes and is sent to the nucleus. It makes photosynthesis, that then that helps make the meat on the plant (aka the brussels sprouts that we eat). This would make photosynthesis go faster. Because of PEPC, it does speed up at a slow pace, but it does speed up. The main cause for this is germination, as it starts the entire thing, and starts the original boost, as when we grew them in the beginning in the classroom.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

1. Our plant is gaining in biomass because of more cells. The plant got energy to create the cells from photosynthesis. With photosynthesis the plant uses the chloroplasts to convert water and carbon dioxide into sugar and oxygen. All of that is powered by the sun's energy. Also the plant got energy from cellular respiration.  The byproduct of cellular respiration is carbon dioxide, which the energy produced is used to creating new cells. New cells are created through mitosis. In mitosis the parent cell copies the parent cell's DNA and organelles then the entire cell. The end product of mitosis is two identical daughter cells.


2. Two important enzymes that are in photosynthesis are Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) and ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco).  To produce those enzymes for photosynthesis it all starts in the nucleus. The DNA message gets converted into a RNA message which is then sent to the cytoplasm. The messenger RNA or mRNA is floating in the cytoplasm and then picked up by ribosomes. Those ribosomes read the mRNA in sections of 3, the first is matching each sequence to the amino acids carried by a particular tRNA. Those amino acids are formed into proteins. Later on those proteins become part of more complex structures, which include the two enzymes used in photosynthesis.  



  

How does Your Garden Grow?

Our plants have increased greatly in size since I last checked up on them. This has happened through an accumulation of biomass in cell division, photosynthesis, and cellular respiration. The most obvious factor in biomass is cell division or mitosis. In this process, cells split themselves in two, replacing dying cells. When used repetitively, this can result in an increase in the number of cells, and therefore an increase in the size of the plant. Photosynthesis also contributes to biomass because excess sugars(glucose) created through this process can be converted into biomass. Cellular respiration however, takes away from a plant's biomass as it uses glucose to create energy(ATP).

If the nucleus of our plant was instructed to produce more of the enzymes PEPC and Rubisco, it would first have to use a process called transcription to convert the DNA code into mRNA. This messenger RNA would be given to ribosomes. The ribosomes would then translate the instructions from the mRNA to construct amino acid chains(polypeptides). The endoplasmic reticulum would then finish off the production of these enzymatic proteins by processing and sorting them. The completed proteins would lastly be sent to the Golgi Apparatus for packaging and delivery.

This is a picture of our growing plant at an early stage.

 

"How Does Your Garden Grow?"

1. Our brussel sprout plant has not grown significantly in size since last time our group checked our plants. Our plants have not grown in size due to a low accumulation of biomass through cell division, photosynthesis, and cellular respiration. The clearest explanation for our plants lack of biomass is mitosis better known as cell division. This process causes cells to split in two equal daughter cells, therefore replacing the dead or dying cells. When this process occurs at a rapid rate, the number of cells increase allowing the plants biomass to increase. In the case of our brussel sprouts, mitosis is not happening at a rapid rate. Photosynthesis also contributes to biomass do to excess glucose (sugar) being made which can later be converted to biomass. Again this is not taking place in our plant and if it is, there is not much biomass being created. One explanation for our plants lack of growth could be cellular respiration. In the case of cellular respiration, the process of photosynthesis is not converting and the excess glucose is being converted to ATP (energy) causing our plant to not increase its biomass.
2. When the nucleus in our brassica plants is put to work by producing more PEPC and Rubisco, which are enzymes, goes through a process called transcription. Transcription is a process in which strands of DNA code are converted to mRNA (messenger RNA). These messenger RNA are then given to the ribosomes. mRNA give instructions to the ribosomes which allows the construction of polypeptides (amino acid chains). Finally, by the production of the enzymatic proteins by processing and sorting will be done by the endoplasmic reticulum. For packaging and delivering, the proteins will foremost be sent to the Golgi apparatus.