Do Roots REALLY grow in the dark?

Contributed by: Smokey D Dope
Thanks to: diels alder

Note: diels alder was instrumental in helping turn this verytechnical subject into something much easier to understand. This is byno means a complete, technical explanation of Botany, rather it’s anunderstanding of the basic principles.

Many times I’ve seen in posts that “roots grow during the dark.”.If this were true, the 24/0 photoperiod would result in a plant with atiny root structure, if one at all! We know this is not the case - sohow does it actually work?

To simplify things, lets use an analogy. Try to think of a plant asa building… one constantly under construction. The plant needs rawmaterials, (fertilizers and water), and energy (light) in order to“build itself”. The raw materials are the “bricks and mortar” of thebuilding. The energy is the workers, vehicles and power tools used toassemble the building.

The Plant is capable of storing some raw materials and some energyfor use later, but the amount is limited...think of a warehouse and abattery.

• During the day, (Lights ON) the plant is collecting and storinglight energy, and is using and storing raw materials. The plant isstockpiling raw material, and is charging it’s batteries… it is ALSOusing raw materials and using the energy it is collecting. It’sbuilding itself, literally putting itself together.
  
  During the day however, the plant is not as efficient at buildingitself, as it is at night (lights OFF.) It can build itself, but not asquickly.
  
  
• While the lights are OFF, the plant is using energy andraw materials to build itself…. the plant is more efficiently using theraw materials that it stored during the day. The plant is better attransporting and assembling the raw materials.
  
  The bad news: since there is no light energy, the plant must relyon energy it stored while the lights were ON (its stored energy).(Essentially, the plant is running on batteries, and using raw materialfrom the warehouse.)
  
  There is no light energy to collect. Since the plant needs energyto absorb more raw materials, it is easier for the plant to use rawmaterials that it stored during the day than it is to absorb rawmaterials through its roots.
  
  
• Although the plant IS capable of “doing it all” with thelights on, (Collect, store and use energy & raw materials) it doesa better job of actually doing the work (using the energy and rawmaterial) while the lights are out. During the dark however, it reliessolely on its limited supply of stored energy and stored raw material.
  
  One last thing to remember is the fact that a plant will alwaysstrive to maintain a balance between the size of its roots and the sizeof its canopy (Leaf mass.) The roots must be big enough to supply asmuch raw materials as the canopy can use, and the canopy must be bigenough to provide the energy required to store those raw materials….
  
  
• Trim the roots on a healthy plant, and canopy growth willslow to a crawl until the roots have grown big enough to again supportthe canopy.
  
  
• Trim the TOP of a healthy plant, and root growth will slowsimilarly, until the canopy has grown big enough to again support theroots.
  
  
• If the plant is already in balance, the canopy and the roots will grow at the same rate.
  
  If you actually measured them several times daily over severaldays, you’d notice that they actually DO get bigger at night, but rootsand canopy at the same rate, unless either has been trimmed, and aslong as the “batteries” hold out.