Question

Describe the biological processes taking place within the dried and soaked peas.

Answer 1

Germination is the growth processes of a seed. It requires a lot of energy to break the seed coat and as it continues to grow this energy need increases. Respiration is required to access this energy so as the seed germinates its respiration rates increase. Non-germinating seeds, however, are dormant and use very little respiration. Some respiration must occur in order for the seed to live. Here seeds get germinated when they get soaked in water,

The rate of cellular respiration will be greater in germinating peas than in dry peas, and temperature will have a direct effect on this rate.

And we can also incorperate the endosmosis phenomenon when dried peas soaked in water.

A phenomenon called endosmosis takes place when peas are placed in water for few hours. When peas are soaked in water, they swell. All this is due to the process of osmosis. The water molecules pass the cell membrane of the pea and the pea thus get swollen.

Otherwise we can consider the process of imbibition.

Imbibition is a special type of diffusion when water is absorbed by solids– colloids – causing them to enormously increase in volume. The classical examples of imbibition are absorption of water by seeds and dry wood.The pressure that is produced by the swelling of wood had been used byprehistoric man to split rocks and boulders. If it were not for the pressuredue to imbibition, seedlings would not have been able to emerge out ofthe soil into the open; they probably would not have been able to establish!Imbibition is also diffusion since water movement is along aconcentration gradient; the seeds and other such materials have almost nowater hence they absorb water easily. Water potential gradient betweenthe absorbent and the liquid imbibed is essential for imbibition. In addition,for any substance to imbibe any liquid, affinity between the adsorbant andthe liquid is also a pre-requisite.