That's right, potatoes are actually stems, not roots. Tubers serve as food storage for the plant, and contain buds. Because they are actually underground stems, they have the ability to perform photosynthesis, the process through which plants use sunlight to make food.
How do potatoes get energy to grow?
Like other plants, potatoes collect sunlight in the leaves and turn that energy into sugars using carbon dioxide. In potatoes, late in the growing season, the sugars in the leaves are delivered to underground stems during the process of making starch in the edible tubers.
Where do potato plants get the energy to perform photosynthesis?
Chlorophyll, a green pigment in leaves, harnesses energy from sunlight that falls directly on the plant. The potato plant can now collect enough sunlight energy to build another tuber and replace the old tuber.
Are potato cells photosynthetic?
By an image-based technique, one photosynthetic characteristic was measured in diverse potato materials. The analysis revealed that there was indeed a large variation of photosynthetic responses among the studied potatoes.
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