Why sunflowers turning towards the sun

• Why sunflowers turning towards the sun

The ability of plants to take a certain position under the influence of sunlight is called heliotropism. At the beginning of the XIX century, the term has entered the Swiss and French botanist Ogusten Candolle Sr. to describe the top of the stem growth toward the sun. Plants are able to reach for the light and unfurl leaves to capture more light. Heliotropism characteristic not only of sunflower, but also, for example, for a string, lotus, Eucalyptus.

Why sunflowers turning towards the sun

plant growth hormone - auxin - builds up on the wrong side of a sunflower, which is in shadow, and at dawn it contains a greater concentration of plant hormone. It turns out that during the day is one part of the stem grows faster than the other, and the plant turns towards the slower growing cells, that is, to the light.

Why sunflowers turning towards the sun

How does it know when and where the sun comes up? In 2016, scientists at the University of California at Davis and the University of Virginia found that sunflowers are guided by internal biorhythms. This experiment proved. Part of sunflowers planted scientists in the lab, which was always on the light. And another part - in the field, securing at the same time some of the plants so that they can not unfold. It was found that the plant lost the ability to focus the sun in the artificial change in daylight length. Consequently, sunflowers, grown in the laboratory and in the field, but in a secured state, "lost" time. As a consequence, their buds grew more slowly, and the leaves were smaller. Moreover, they were given 10% less food than those sunflowers that grow in the wild. In addition to the accumulation of a large biomass of sunflowers ability to rotate to follow the sun has another advantage: it allows you to attract more pollinators. The reason is simple: in the morning inflorescence turned to the east, which helps them to quickly warm up. And the bees prefer warm flowers and therefore approaches the sunflowers are much more often than to the plants in the morning facing the West.