Plant physiology Julius von Sachs unified the pieces of plant physiology and put them together as a discipline. His "Lehrbuch der Botanik" was the plant physiology bible of its time. Researchers discovered in the 1800s that plants absorb essential mineral nutrients as inorganic ions in water. In natural conditions, soil acts as a mineral nutrient reservoir but the soil itself is not essential to plant growth. When the mineral nutrients in the soil are dissolved in water, plant roots absorb nutrients readily, soil is no longer required for the plant to thrive. This observation is the basis for hydroponics, the growing of
Epigenetics of plant growth and development or other component of DNA. Long non-coding RNA often complement functional regions of DNA with overlaps or antisense (Kung et al. 2013). To direct transcriptional silencing, a non-coding RNA will associate with a polycomb group protein which to tether it to a specific gene for silencing (Kleinmanns et al. 2014). Germination is the early growth of a plant from a seed. Meanwhile, dormancy precedes germination and serves to preserve a seed until conditions are receptive towards growth. The transition from dormancy to germination seems to depend on the removal of factors inhibiting growth. There are many models for germination which