How does saltwater effect the growth of plants?

Answer 1

It depends on the plant. Most botanical organisms will not grow in saltwater because the sodium sucks out the moisture from the plant and it leaves the water without nutrients Some plants like salt grass are adapted to grow in saltwater. They have a thicker layer on the outer most part of the stem. That allows them to filter the salt from the water.

Answer 2

Yes
Salt alone is not harmful to plants. However, how much salt a plant gets can affect it. Plants die when you water them with salty water because they lose water and shrivel up. Cells in general gain and lose water by the process called osmosis. I'm sure you've had the experience of getting wrinkly skin from spending too much time in the bath. This is because your skin cells absorb water and swell up, so your skin wrinkles. Try to imagine what's inside a cell in your skin. In the cytoplasm, or 'cell juice', there are lots of proteins, small molecules, and dissolved substances swimming around a watery medium. Compared to your bath water, which is mostly water with only a small amount of soap dissolved in it, the concentration of stuff in your cells is much higher. We say that your cytoplasm has a lower water potential compared to bath water. That means the bath water is more watery than the inside of your cells. Water tends to move from more watery to less watery places. Therefore, water moves into your cells and they swell, causing your skin to wrinkle. The same thing happens with plant cells. When you water a wilted plant, it absorbs water very quickly. This is because the plant has lost water, and the insides of its cells are much less watery than the water you're pouring on it. Therefore, water moves into the cells until it swells up and becomes turgid. As you may know, plant cells are enclosed by cell walls made of cellulose, which is the stuff that makes up paper, so they don't swell until they burst, like animal cells might. You can imagine a turgid cell as something like a balloon, that's been blown up until it's stretched and firm. That's why well-watered plants are upright and firm, while dried-out plants are soft and bent-over. So now we get to your question. When we water plants with salty water, the salty water is less watery than the stuff inside the cells. The cells are at a higher water potential compared to the salty water, where earlier they were at a lower water potential compared to the fresh water. This means that the cytoplasm ("cell juice" or "cell sap") is more watery than the salty water you've given the plants. Therefore, water moves out of the plant cell, and the plant loses water. When the plant loses water, the cells are no longer turgid, they are no longer firm. Without enough water, the plant will die. You can try a simple experiment. Take a bunch of raisins, and soak them in water for a long while. They'll swell up. If you take these swollen raisins and put them in very salty water, they'll shrink again if you wait long enough (tip: use fewer raisins and more salty water, and stir from time to time). It doesn't happen just with salt. If you use very sugary water, or honey, they'll shrink too. That's how people make pickles, by leaving cucumbers in very salty water, so they'll shrivel up and become crispy. So you see salt is not a poison or a toxin, but because it affects how much water a plant has, it can affect its health. As for your question on what is salt, I'll direct you to some other webpages and answers from the MadSci archives.... from aj

Answer 3

salt water will result firstly in the stunting of the plants and possibly some direct burn damage. prolonged use of salt water will change the pH of the soil around the plant preventing osmosis and physically causing the cells of the root hairs to become damaged - further damaging the plant. changes in pH of the soil, even small ones can result in nutrients being "locked up" in the soil as their physical and chemical properties are altered - this results in deficiencies

There is a group of plants called halophytes (such as species found along coastal areas) that can metabolise salt (through various mechanisms), and can tolerate higher salt concentrations than "normal" plants - eg. mangroves, coconuts

Answer 4

If you water a plants with salt water any moisture already in it will diffuse out and into the soil because the salt water has a high solute content and sucked all of the moisture out

Most Plants humans will be associating with will be fresh water plants. Salt water plants have adaptions so that plasmolysis doesn't happen. Plasmolysis is where the cell membrane pulls away from the cell wall, This is why fresh water plants are not salt tolerant.

Answer 5

It depends, if you are mixing half saltwater and half freshwater it is still saltwater but with less salt. If you are watering the plant with freshwater then saltwater it will most likely have a normal outcome because it would then be much less saltwater and be less likely to kill the plant . If this doesn't help how about conducting an experiment?

Answer 6

Salt water has more salt and as a result, the hardness of the water is more. When the roots absorb the water, the salt, which in itself is a solid, gets in more and as a result, the minerals essential for the growth is not provided. So, for these minerals, the roots try to do more work but, the plant has less food for itself and therefore, it cannot let any part do more or less work.

Answer 7

Yes it does the salt will dry the plant an kill it

I have it for a science fair project so i know

so take it from me it will affect it

Answer 8

Studys have shown that salt water in fact does effect the growth of a plant, in just two weeks the plant that was green will be yellow and might just die