Please give detailed answers, thank you! 1. If you were to develop chemical herb
ID: 203628 • Letter: P
Question
Please give detailed answers, thank you!
1. If you were to develop chemical herbicides, what are some ways you could kill weeds by targeting the light reactions of photosynthesis?
2. How can chemical herbicides be used to study the relative reaction rates of each photosystem independently?
3. Can oxygen production be used to measure photosynthetic activity?
4. Would oxygen be produced in the presence of chemical uncouplers such as DCMU?
6. A white light source was used in this experiment. Would you expect to find photosynthetic activity at all wavelengths? Why or why not?
Explanation / Answer
1. Fact which can be harnessed is that the weeds require a sugar source to grow and an easy way to kill them is to kill their food source. Photosynthesis-inhibiting herbicides block the photosynthesis light reactions so that sugars won’t be able to produce. Chemical herbicides functions by competitively bind to electron acceptors to destroy them so that light reactions will not be able to occur photosystems. This reduces the production of sugar and weeds won’t survive and eventually die.
2. One can test the change in the reaction by targeting different steps in photosynthesis. It can be used to determine the reaction rate in photosystems. The main advantage of chemical herbicide is that it can inhibit each photosystem independently. For example, an inhibitor can be used to inhibit photosystem II in order to study photosystem I.
3. Yes. The presence of oxygen affects the photosynthetic activities.
4. No. Oxygen is not produced in the presence of chemical uncouplers such as DCMU.
6. No. In whole white light spectrum, there are wavelengths that cannot be absorbed. That is one of the reasons that leaves appear green. When green light is used, photosynthesis won’t occur. The plants are very selective in light absorbed for the purpose of being absorbed.