Question

What is the role of water in plants?

Answer 1

Hint: We all know that plants are autotrophs, i.e., they can make their own food. For this, they only require two basic ingredients- air and water, along with some nutrients from the soil. Water has some very important physiological roles in the plants.

Complete answer:
The major physiological role of water in plants are:
Maintenance of turgidity of the cell for proper structure and growth.
Without water, plants cannot perform photosynthesis, and the most important part is that without water, no oxygen would be produced since the splitting of water does not occur. It is because of water that oxygen is produced during photosynthesis in plants.
It helps in the transport of essential nutrients from the roots of the plants towards the ‘food making factory’ or leaves for efficient production of organic matter and then it also works as the major pathway for distribution of the organic matter from the leaves to various parts of the plant body.
It makes up most part of the protoplasm of a cell and serves as the ground for many metabolic reactions to occur.
Water acts as a solvent in which the minerals and food materials are dissolved and distributed throughout the plant body with the help of xylem and phloem.

Note:
The major point to be noted is the contribution of water in the photosynthesis process which eventually releases oxygen. The splitting up of water follows the equation:

The oxygen here acts as an electron acceptor.
In certain microbes, some inorganic metallic or non-metallic compounds act as this electron acceptor, so no oxygen is evolved. This type of microbial photosynthesis is termed as anoxygenic photosynthesis.