Farm Fact Friday: What happens when plants get too much water?

Hello everyone welcome back to another Farm Fact Friday we had plans to go on site today for an exciting tour of a farm but weather did not cooperate. We want you to be able to enjoy this farm on a sunny day, so that is coming one of these weeks we’re rescheduling. So the rain this morning though did bring up a topic that we’re going to discuss today and it’s when plants get too much water yes it’s certainly possible. I’m sure you’ve seen it before but we’re going to talk a little bit about what actually happens to that plant, going to talk a little bit of science but we’re going to keep it very basic it’s much more complicated than what we’ll talk about today but it’ll kind of give us an insight to actually what happens with a healthy plant and then what happens when there’s too much water. So whether it’s a field or a garden it’s not ideal to have water just sitting on the plants know what no one needs we don’t just drink water constantly plants don’t need to drink water constantly either so when we get long periods of rain or rain that comes really really fast if that water doesn’t have a place to go it’s going to sit right on that root structure of the plant or possibly even submerge that plant. So at the plant is why if a plant is sitting there and the root structure is in that water for a long period of time it actually suffocates the roots and the plant will die. So we don’t want that to happen same thing with if that plant sits maybe it’s in a low area of the field and the tile is there but it’s not able to move the water fast enough maybe the ditches are already full it just takes time but what happens is that water can get over top of the plants and by combining the water with the dirt it can result in the plant getting dirt where it shouldn’t be. So you can kind of see on this leaf here see how that has the dirt on it sometimes the whole plant is like that and if you’re driving by a bean field after a heavy heavy rain in the maybe days after the water has actually moved on its way those plants may actually look brown instead of green and that’s not ideal and let me tell you why. It is the process of photosynthesis maybe a big word, kind of fun to say but plants have this cool ability that they can produce their own food. So what happens is the root structure brings in water so that’s one component and then each one of these leaves have what’s called chlorophyll in it and the chlorophyll brings in the sunlight and then the plant also brings in carbon dioxide in the combination of water the sunlight through the chlorophylls and carbon dioxide this plant is able to produce its own food through sugar and it gives us oxygen. So a pretty cool organism plant that does quite a few things so if you’re blocking these leaves because they have dirt on them mud on them and that sunlight can’t get through to the chlorophylls if you take out one piece of that puzzle it can’t do what it needs to do and it dies. So similarly if that mud is on the leaves and then the sun comes down it could just bake the plant in general. So we like rain we like it in steady flows but of course mother nature sometimes has a way of doing things. So in a big field depending on you know the time of year it could result in having to replant certain areas of the field but sometimes it’s that’s not possible if you have a garden you want to check on your garden after heavy rains what you could do is you know provide your own ditches to get that water away from it and if your plants do become covered with mud on the leaves you want to make sure that you at least try to rinse that off. So they can continue to do their process of photosynthesis so pretty cool that they are able to do all of that on their own but we just have to make sure that they have the right things uh to be able to do that. So I hope you guys have enjoyed today’s Farm Fact Friday if you’re interested in learning more about photosynthesis I love science so we could talk about it more later but have a great rest of your Friday a wonderful weekend we’ll check you back next week for another Farm Fact Friday bye.