How Do Our Collards Grow?

The collards have been adding biomass because of the always increasing number of cells. Photosynthesis, the conversion of sunlight to usable energy for the plant (glucose), occurs and that gives the cells enough energy to start mitosis. Respiration then occurs and metabolizes (burns) the energy (glucose) so that mitosis and other processes can occur. In mitosis, the cell divides and produces two diploid cells, identical to the parent cell. Tons of new cells are being made every minute. When the cell production rate is higher than the cell death rate, the plant, in this case the collards, will keep growing and gain more biomass. Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase and ribulose 1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase are two important enzymes used in photosynthesis, so they need to be produced a lot. In order to produce these enzymes, the nucleus of the cell “tells” the rough endoplasmic reticulum (or the ribosome in the cell, depending on if it is prokaryote or eukaryote cell) that they need more of these enzymes. They then start the production of these enzymes. In conclusion. through the process of photosynthesis, respiration, and mitosis, biomass increases and enzymes are created in either the ribosomes or in the rough endoplasmic reticulum.