Factors Affecting Photosynthesis

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What is Photosynthesis?
Photosynthesis is a process in which plants and other organisms convert the light energy from the sun or any other source into chemical energy that can be released to fuel an organism’s activities. During this reaction, carbon dioxide and water are converted into glucose and oxygen. This process takes place in leaf cells which contain chloroplasts and the reaction requires light energy from the sun, which is absorbed by a green substance called chlorophyll. The plants absorb the water through their roots from the earth and carbon dioxide through their leaves.
Here is the equation for photosynthesis:
Carbon Dioxide + Water (+ light energy) Glucose + Oxygen

Factors that Affect Photosynthesis
The three factors that can affect the rate of photosynthesis are light intensity, concentration of carbon dioxide and temperature.
Without enough …show more content…

This is the same if there is the light intensity is too high as this can damage the chloroplasts in plants and this will minimize the rate of photosynthesis. As shown in the graph as the light intensity increases, the photosynthesis rate increases until a point is reached where the rate begins to level off into a plateau. At a low light intensity, photosynthesis occurs slowly because only a small quantity of ATP and NADPH is produced. As the light intensity shown in the graph is gradually increasing, more ATP and NADPH (NADH is used in cellular respiration and NADPH is used in photosynthesis) are produced, which means more oxygen and sugar is produced, therefore increasing the rate of photosynthesis. But as the light intensity increases even more and past a certain light intensity on the graph, this is due to the other factors such as carbon dioxide limiting the rate of

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