Most Popular Images from Plant Science

Hydroponics

One of the ways to grow plants in hydroponic setups is to use individual receptacles for each plant. In this case a PVC tube with holes cut at regular intervals was used.

Vegetables are now regularly grown using hydroponic technology due to its efficient use of water and nutrients.

NASA researcher checking hydroponic onions and Bibb lettuce to his left and radishes to his right.

Growing Marijuana has become very popular in the United States with the legalisation of the activity in many states.

Plants often have to be ‘started’ in special synthetic starter media that will contain the seeds without them being washed away.

The root system produced from plants that have been grown hydroponically is often much finer and more dense than equivalent soil-grown ones.

There are several different types of media that can be used in hydroponics. In this image, clay balls or ‘Hydroton’ is used to provide stability to the plant as it grows.

Hydroponics is catching the world over. In this image, students from Barbados learn how to grow plants hydroponically.

Various techniques have been used to optimise the use of space and light to maximise efficiency. One such idea is use large rotating ‘wheels’.

Growing Plants Inside

Growing plants inside is becoming increasingly popular. A common technique is to use hydroponic systems constructed within a grow tent.

Cultivation of bell peppers in a commercial greenhouse in Klazienaveen, Netherlands.

Growing indoors has become common-place in the United States with an explosion of indoor marijuana gardens as the activity has become legal in many states.

In many states in the United States and in the majority of the countries around the world including the UK, the growing of cannabis or marijuana remains illegal.

The growing of food crops within indoor farms and even homes is becoming increasingly popular as the use of pesticides can be kept to a minimum.

In some cases, the meaning of ‘growing inside’ is taken to extremes!

‘Vertical farming’ has become the latest buzz-word for indoor growing. The concept has started to reach new heights!

Germination & Young Plants

Many plants emerge from the soil in very similar mechanisms. The first two ‘leaves’ on the young plants differ from their eventual mature leaf structures and are referred to as cotyledons or seed leaves.

Sunflower seedlings, three days after germination.

Seeds consist of three main parts: an Embryo, a Food Store, and a Coat

Plant seeds can be a variety of different sizes from the smallest grain of rice to some of the largest seeds such as coconuts.

Artificial Lighting

Today, even the amateur gardener is starting to grow indoors. In many states in the US, Marijuana cultivation has been legalised which has contributed to a rapid rise in the use of artificial lighting to make the drug.

LED lighting used to grow lettuce inside a warehouse. In commercial operations LED strip lighting has become the deominant typ of light set up that companies have adopted.

LED panel light source used in an experiment on potato plant growth by NASA.

Artificial lighting used for growing plants comes in all shapes and sizes.

Artificial grow lighting is starting to be used on an industrial scale. In this picture a warehouse in Japan has been fitted with LED lighting making it the largest such grow area in the world.

Different lighting technologies have been used to grow plants – each has its advantages and disadvantages. Here we see compact fluorescent lighting used as the light source.

Microscopic

Mitosis in summit of root of an onion plant. Nuclei are stained in blue – this is a cross-sectional view.

Stone cells in pear fruit.

Cross-section view of pumpkin’s stalk.

Different staining methods can be used to enhance microscopic imagery.

Plant science is becoming increasingly important as the world looks for ways to feed and an ever-expanding global population.

Chlorophyll is the key ingredient that plants use to change sunlight into plant sugars – It is present in all green plant cells.

Different techniques can highlight different microscopic structures within the plant cell. This is due to different cell structures having differing chemical composition.

Educational

Diagram showing the names of different plant stuctures of a flowering plant.

Plant cells have many of the same structures that animal cells have. One notable difference, however, is the presence of a rigid cell wall that gives plants their structural strengnth.