Aim To determine the water potential of a potato tuber cell
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- 5097
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- Tue Jul 17 2007
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... Aim To determine the water potential of a potato tuber cell Fig 1- picture of a plant cell Introduction Osmosis is the movement of water through a semi permeable membrane, separating solutions of different concentrations. The water passes from a region of high concentration to a region of low concentration, until the two concentrations are equal in concentrations of water. Many cell membranes behave as semi permeable membranes, and osmosis is a vital mechanism in the transport of fluids in living organisms, for example, in the transport of water from the soil to the roots in plants. If a cell is in contact with a solution of lower water concentration than its own contents, then water leaves the cell by osmosis, through the cell membrane. Water is lost first from the cytoplasm, then the vacuole through the tonoplast (vacuolar membrane). (Fig 1) The living contents of the cell contracts and eventually pulls away














