How Is Food Transported in Plants: A Simple Guide to Plant Nutrition

Liputan6.com, Jakarta - Have you ever wondered how is food transported in plants from one part to another? Unlike animals that have blood to carry nutrients, plants have their own special systems. These systems move the food they make from the leaves to other parts like roots, stems, and flowers. This movement is essential for plants to grow and stay healthy.

Plants are amazing living things that create their own food using sunlight, water, and air. They don't eat food like we do. Instead, they make sugar through a process called photosynthesis. After making this sugar in their leaves, they need a way to share it with all parts of the plant.

In this article, we will talk about plants and their foods. We will cover what kind of food do plants use, how do they produce their own foods, and how is food transported in plants. We gathered the information from various sources, Thursday (20/3/2025).

Plants don't eat food like humans and animals do. Instead, they create their own food through photosynthesis. The main food that plants make and use is sugar, specifically sucrose. As LSU AgCenter explains, plants create sugar by combining carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil using the energy from sunlight.

Besides sugar, plants also need minerals from the soil. As mentioned in Lallemand Plant Care, plants require:

- Nitrogen, which helps convert minerals into plant tissue

- Phosphorus, necessary for plant growth

- Potassium, which plays a role in forming and storing sugars

- Calcium and magnesium to improve soil structure

- Sulfur for protein synthesis

- Trace elements like copper, manganese, zinc, and boron

These minerals are not food themselves, but they help plants make and use their food efficiently. The sugar plants provide energy, while the minerals support various plant functions and growth.

Plants need food for several important reasons, just like all living things. Here's why food is essential for plant survival:

1. Energy source: As mentioned by LSU AgCenter, the sugar created during photosynthesis stores the energy from sunlight. Plants use this energy to power all their life processes.

2. Building plant tissue: Lallemand Plant Care explains that nitrogen helps convert mineral matter into plant tissue. Plants use the energy and carbon from sugar to build new cells and grow.

3. Cold and drought resistance: Lallemand notes that potassium helps plants resist cold temperatures and drought, showing how food helps plants survive difficult conditions.

4. Protein synthesis: Sulfur is necessary for protein synthesis, according to Lallemand. These proteins are essential for plant structure and function.

5. Storage: As LibreTexts Biology states, plants store food in the form of starch in places like seeds, tubers, and bulbs. This stored food can be used later when needed.

Without food, plants cannot grow, develop flowers and fruits, or survive environmental challenges. The food they make provides both the energy and the building blocks they need for all life activities.

Plants make their own food through a process called photosynthesis. According to LSU AgCenter, photosynthesis means "to create from light." Here's how it works:

1. Capturing light energy: Plants have a green pigment called chlorophyll in their leaves. This chlorophyll captures the energy from sunlight.

2. Gathering raw materials: Plants take in carbon dioxide from the air through tiny holes in their leaves called stomata. They also absorb water from the soil through their roots.

3. Creating sugar: Using the energy from light, plants combine carbon dioxide and water to form sugar molecules called glucose. Oxygen is released as a byproduct into the air.

4. Storing energy: The sugar molecules store the energy that the plant absorbed from the sun. As LSU AgCenter explains, this is the energy that we, in turn, use when we eat plants or animals that eat plants.

According to the LSU AgCenter, photosynthesis transformed our world. When photosynthetic bacteria and plants first evolved, they released oxygen that changed Earth's atmosphere, making it possible for animals like us to exist.

Plants make food mainly in their leaves because leaves have the most chlorophyll and can capture the most sunlight. This process happens in special cell structures called chloroplasts, which are abundant in leaf cells.

After plants make food in their leaves, they need to move it to other parts. This happens through a special tissue called phloem. Here's how is food transported in plants:

1. The transport system: The phloem is a network of tube-like cells that connect all parts of the plant. It consists of several types of cells working together: sieve tubes that form pipes, companion cells that provide energy, phloem parenchyma that give support, and phloem fibers that add strength.

2. Direction of transport: Unlike the water transport system (xylem) that only moves upward, phloem can move food both up and down the plant. This allows food to travel wherever it's needed - up to growing buds or down to developing roots.

3. Source to sink movement: Food moves from "sources" to "sinks" in plants. Sources are parts that make food (mature leaves) or release stored food. Sinks are parts that use food (growing shoots) or store it (roots, fruits, seeds). The pattern changes as the plant grows - young plants send more food to roots, flowering plants send more to flowers and fruits.

4. The process of movement: Sugar (mostly sucrose) is actively pushed into the phloem tubes using energy. As sugar enters the phloem, water follows it naturally. This creates pressure inside the tubes, pushing the sugar-water mixture through the plant toward areas with less sugar.

5. Unloading at the destination: When this mixture reaches parts that need food, the sugar moves out of the phloem. These receiving areas have lower sugar levels because they either use the sugar quickly for growth or convert it to other substances like starch for storage.

6. Water recycling: After sugar leaves the phloem, water also exits. This water can either evaporate from the plant or move back into the water transport system to be used again.

The phloem carries more than just sugar. It also transports amino acids and various other compounds throughout the plant. These materials mostly go to storage organs like roots, fruits, and seeds, as well as to actively growing tissues that need nutrients.