Current Agriculture: Plant Growth and Development

Growth
The growth of plants requires energy. Plants get their energy from the sun through photosynthesis, and then use these sugars to make more complex sugars and starches for storage as energy reserves, in other to make cellulose and hemicelluloses for cell walls or with nitrogen, to make proteins. The nature in which plant uses its energy depends on the developmental stages of the plant and on environmental conditions. Grass or clover plants regain new leaves removed from them through growth and development from the buds on the crown or stems of the plant, this growth requires energy which comes from reserve carbohydrates or from actively photosynthesizing leaves still left on the plant.

Root growth
This is the determining ability of a plant to obtain nutrients and water. Root growth is determined by plant actively photosynthesizing leaf area since the roots depend on energy captured by the leaves. When energy supply is inadequate, it is used by plant tissue most closely to the site of photosynthesis. Roots receive energy only when more energy is produced by photosynthesis than is being used by top growth. However, drought conditions may reduce the top growth while photosynthesis remains active. This causes the accumulation of carbohydrates at relatively low canopy heights.

Plant development
Plant development is the process that involves a plant in changing from one growth stage to another. This could be attributed to the development of tillers on a grass plant or flower buds on a legume plant. The development of plant is the major factor in which forage quality is affected. As plants tend to move from vegetative to reproductive stages, forage quality reduces. At their reproductive stages, both grasses and legumes produce stemmy growth. As a plant grow older it increases in fiber and decreases in digestibility, crude protein, and intake by livestock.