Talk:Transpiration

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Aegbers.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:40, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nr03casp.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:40, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Headline text
There seems to be much unnecessary vagueness and confusion about what powers transpiration. The power source is important, because it manages to, the moons rotation, and of,of gravity. Textbooks often state or imply that the source of power is sunlight, possibly because of an assumption that transpiration and photosynthesis share the same source of power. However, sunlight hardly has the thermodynamic qualities necessary for promoting evaporation. What seems more likely is that the major source of power for transpiration is solar radiation in the form of solar heat. Whereas plants obtain their food energy from sunlight, they lift nutrients (essential for catalysis of photosynthesis and metabolism)to the foliage using solar heat instead. This separation of power sources has potentially important implications for the ecology of plants, which have been neglected up to now.

this page is discussing the parts and all about the transpiration plant.this page is very valuable. i would just read this page if i were you because it mightjust inlighten you.i read it and it is helping me with my science homework Oh and make contribution to wikipedia. like god said {give and it will come back to you]

oxygen
there isn't a single mention of oxygen in this article! what kind of encyclopedia article on transpiration doesn't mention oxygen production??

the page
it is a good page. it inlightened me
 * We're glad you liked it theresa knott

hi, just wondering, what happens to the rest of the water taken in?


 * The rest of the water is used for photosynthesis (CO2+H2O+Light->O2+CH2O). Around 90-99 percent of the water is lost to transpiration. JackMontana (talk) 20:46, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.198.99.112 (talk) 10:24, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

what about capillary action?


 * Capillary action is not important in this process. The water column (in the xylem) is established from the very beginning of plant growth and the transpirational pull due to the water potential gradient (increasingly negative from root to stem to leaf to atmosphere) drives the entire process. JackMontana (talk) 20:46, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

and how much is transpired, through, say, a tree? a plant?

For a tree it's a lot! I've amended the article. theresa knott 14:33, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

How would a plant placed within 0.1 Mol solution of KCl affect its transpiration rates?
 * GCSE coursework, right? I had to do the same experiment last year. 86.139.235.160 13:12, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this page is very infomative it helped me with my homework!!!! Q if the chloroplast in a plant is green what about red leaves???????81.157.136.44 17:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

should the first step in my watercycle diagram be transpiration? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.236.61 (talk) 04:34, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The water cycle is a cycle, there's not a first or last step. JackMontana (talk) 20:46, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

um how long does it take for the plant to finish transpiration? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.89.32.39 (talk) 18:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

According to the article, transpiration is driven primarily by hydrostatic potential differences caused by diffusion, rather than capillary action. I'm confused about how diffusion, a process that I don't think involves any work, can do work to move water against gravity; could someone help clear this confusion for me? Also, does water at the top of the plant tug (upwards) on the bit of water below, and that bit of water below on the bit of water below it, and so on, all the way down to the roots, so water near the leaves does some work to pull water below it up? I read in a SciAm article that completely breaking the line of water from the roots to the leaves stops the process of transpiration and kills the plant; if transpiration is a process driven solely by diffusion and capillary action, why would this be? sf1001 — Preceding undated comment added 03:30, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Should This Article be Merged with the Article on Perspiration
Isn't transpiration just the plant version of evaporation? Both involve organisms emitting water, both do it through pores, and one of the reasons that plants do it is to cool down, and animals mainly perspire to cool off. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.195.88.33 (talk) 23:10, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

# of stomata
I am confused on to why my updates got removed. If anyone can help so I know what to do next time. There was no reason given. (Amc1591 (talk) 05:14, 2 May 2017 (UTC))


 * The number of stomata does not equate to stomatal conductance as you implied. Number of stomata needs to be expressed as stomata per unit area, and the terms 'stomatal density' or 'stomatal frequency' are widely used. A number of other parameters also need to be taken into consideration, notably the size of the stomatal opening. The role of stomata is already covered in the lead section and in the Regulation section There may be a case for strengthening what is said in these sections, but a new section covering the same points is not helpful. Furthermore the word effect was inappropriately used. Plant surfer  10:29, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Actual numbers
Some actual transpiration rates are in a hundred-year-old source:


 * Birch 67.9
 * Lime 61.5
 * Beech 56.6
 * Maple 46.2
 * Elm 40.7
 * Oak 28.3
 * Red spruce 5.8
 * White pine 5.8
 * Silver fir 4.4
 * Austrian pine 3.2

Perhaps sample rates could be included?

--Mortense (talk) 16:00, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I would also really like a table of numbers. Of more than just trees preferably. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A601:45D0:5820:D5FE:897C:F9B1:1A07 (talk) 14:09, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

POV inline tag I added
The sentence "Transpiration is vital to the earth’s ecology and is being reduced by our decimation of the forests" is obviously not neutral. It needs to be fixed. --Firestar464 (talk) 06:17, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The statement is 100% accurate and correct. What is "not neutral" about it? In Hawaii, for example, forests were cleared which turned the land arid; when the forests were replanted, the moisture returned and so did fresh drinking water.  There’s literally hundreds of examples of this in the literature. Viriditas (talk) 04:28, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Although the statement is correct, I removed it to restore the tag-less version. Littering a page like this with useless tags is not a solution to anything.  This is basic ecology 101.  Nothing controversial or out of the ordinary here. Viriditas (talk) 04:32, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Other half of 'effect on environment: cooling'
How about the caveat that transpirational cooling also means higher humidity whether by plant, swamp cooler, or those fake mini ventless air conditioners? To some degree adding a tree canopy to an urban heat island could make both the temperature and dewpoint higher than before. B137 (talk) 02:46, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

time of day
Interesting article, but I would've liked to have seen information about when transpiration takes place. Is it all the time? Is it only at certain times of the day? All the time, but some times are heavy and other times light? Do different plants transpire at different times of the day? Is the time of transpiration dependent on the light, humidity, or any other factor, including the interaction of other plants and animals with the plant? Do some plants transpire less and then more, depending on the time of week or month or year or decade? Does transpiration continue, to an extent, after the plant has died? Does the rate of transpiration affect other factors about the plant? Can there be so much water that the tree is unable to take enough of it into its roots that the soil becomes unstable? Or, conversely, are trees able to suck up more water and transpire more when they realise that the soil is getting so wet its stability is affecting their continued prosperity. (Sorry to use the bathetic fallacy there, but you get the point I'm sure.) 114.23.160.45 (talk) 05:37, 27 March 2024 (UTC)