How do trees pump water?

Trees absorb large quantities of water from the soil and transport it to the leaves where it supports cellular processes and photosynthesis, but most of the water pumped to the leaves evaporates into the air in a process called transpiration. How trees can pump vast amounts of water up to 30 meter high has been the subject of scientific inquiry since the 1890’s. This animation will delve into transpiration, water cohesion and adhesion, and the cohesion-tension theory of water transport. The video will also describe the recent results from a study on passive water transport in a synthetic tree.
For further reading:
bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelve...
www.quora.com/How-do-trees-ca...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylem
Shi, W., Dalrymple, R.M., McKenny, C.J. et al. Passive water ascent in a tall, scalable synthetic tree. Sci Rep 10, 230 (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-57...
S Bittner, M Janott, D Ritter, et al. Functional-structural water flow model reveals differences between diffuse- and ring-porous tree species. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, vol 158-159 (2012), pp 80-89.

[@annabergqwist]

Great explanation thank you!

[@ScienceSketch]

Thank you very much!

[@hygrobiology]

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[@user-ov3gv8gd9k]

@@ScienceSketch ⚠ God has said in the Quran: 🔵 { O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous - ( 2:21 ) 🔴 [He] who made for you the earth a bed [spread out] and the sky a ceiling and sent down from the sky, rain and brought forth thereby fruits as provision for you. So do not attribute to Allah equals while you know [that there is nothing similar to Him]. ( 2:22 ) 🔵 And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah, if you should be truthful. ( 2:23 ) 🔴 But if you do not - and you will never be able to - then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers.( 2:24 ) 🔵 And give good tidings to those who believe and do righteous deeds that they will have gardens [in Paradise] beneath which rivers flow. Whenever they are provided with a provision of fruit therefrom, they will say, "This is what we were provided with before." And it is given to them in likeness. And they will have therein purified spouses, and they will abide therein eternally. ( 2:25 ) ⚠ Quran

[@thestrongman11]

4:23 thanks for the video. how much were the diameter of the tubes to achieve that 3 mts?

[@Daniel-wy2hm]

Oh, really good. Thanks for the video.

[@abd_llah000]

Very helpful, thanks

[@sassysarky]

Nice explanation ❤️

[@arkakrishna6134]

Amazing!

[@larspardo4309]

I feel that we are missing the implications of being able to move water against gravity using only evaporation....specifically is it possible to move water from a reservoir, up a slope, to another reservoir. ...collect the water thru condensation ....& then generate electricity as the water flows down to the first reservoir. If this were possible, it would be the equivalent of a solar powered battery using water as the medium........fascinating.... I'm pretty sure I'm missing something here....

[@ScienceSketch]

Thanks, Lars, for your insightful comment. You're not missing anything at all. Your proposal is very perceptive. We take advantage of a similar process now. Water is evaporated from ground and ocean sources, the water condenses at high altitude to form clouds and then the water is deposited as rain or snow at high altitude. The downhill flow of the water is used to drive turbines to make electricity (hydropower).

[@larspardo4309]

@@ScienceSketch thanks for the reply.....so in theory we could generate electricity in a closed loop system ... building 2 reservoir lakes connected by thousands of capillary tubes without the need to dam up rivers & thus disrupt salmon migration etc...???

[@ScienceSketch]

A closed loop system seems possible, but only if you used the sun's energy to evaporate the water from the low reservoir and then condense it at the high reservoir. The condenser would have to have a cold source, and you would have to find a way to do that without consuming energy. I'm not sure that a bundle of capillary tubes connecting one reservoir to another would work. It is the evaporation (transpirations in plants) at the open end of the tubes that creates the "suction" pulling up the water. Unless you had a way to allow the evaporation at the upper reservoir and then condensed the vapor to create liquid water. Again, you'd need the cold source to condense the water vapor. Anyway, it's worth finding out if anyone has tried something like that.

[@larspardo4309]

@@ScienceSketch love to discuss over lunch - where in the States are you located...I'm in Seattle

[@riazijabar5296]

Yo thanks mate

[@ButterflyLullabyLtd]

Hello. A tree cutter told our neighbours that the trees were causing damp problems in their house. Can you please confirm this is not true. We all know that trees suck up water; therefore, they make our gardens less boggy. Sadly, all the trees have been cut down because of mis-information.

[@Jesse.AlternateAccount]

Sounds like he just wanted to cut down living things while lying to you and you neighbours to get a bit of money

[@tomhargraves]

The experiment demonstrates that water can be pulled up 3 meters, not 30 meters.

[@DavidfromMichigan]

So, OK, then this would debunk the whole theory about harvesting your plants before sunrise right? The theory says that at night, plants nutrients will flow back down to the roots, as well as water, making your harvest more palatable.

[@inspirationtalent4416]

Do trees release extra water at night

[@ScienceSketch]

The stomata close after dark, and transpiration stops at night.

[@inspirationtalent4416]

@@ScienceSketch so trees do not remove extra water at night

[@ScienceSketch]

Trees continue to pull water from the roots at night, but the release of water into the air (transpiration) stops after dark. www.quora.com/Why-is-water-transported-faster-during-the-daytime-than-at-night-in-plants

[@inspirationtalent4416]

@@ScienceSketch transpiration is stop at night but how tree remove water at night i can't understand

[@lenny108]

Basically, trees absorb water during the night with moist fog. Unfortunately, biologists have not discovered this yet. They don't pump water up the trunk.

[@mahmoudabdelaziz5360]

The question is: Why doesn't the water get boiled? Lets say pinewood trees grows more than 200 feet, theoretically at some point the water moving upwards has to reach a boiling point!!

[@otaviofonseca8383]

Yes it should get boiled, but changing fase form liquid to gas requires activation energy and that energy can come from a tiny air bubble, so the solution for this is that water in the xylem tubes contains no air bubble and they can do this because unlike a straw they have been water filled from the start. this video helped me to understanding better the concept of activation energy:kzbin.info/www/bejne/ppmbqaipjph6iq8

[@mahmoudabdelaziz5360]

@@otaviofonseca8383 Thanks :)

[@mahmoudabdelaziz5360]

@@otaviofonseca8383 No air bubbles, no pressure difference, and therefore, no boil.

[@yunissimos7325]

Trees sure are amazing 😂😂😂❤❤😮

[@yunissimos7325]

I love trees ❤❤❤😂😂😂

[@yunissimos7325]

Low pressure is my favorite kind of pressure 😂😂😂❤❤😊😊

[@richardgangemi3143]

Even at zero air pressure at the top of the tree there is not enough pressure at the root to push the water up to a few hundred feet. Scientists are clueless

[@quinnco9]

It’s actually been shown that trees have strong *negative* pressure at their crowns (-15 to -20 atmospheres for average trees but much lower for the tallest ones!). Fluid pressure can be negative, unlike air pressure, because the water molecules pull against each other. And the water doesn’t boil because it’s a pure column with no air to introduce activation energy. Veritasium has a very good video on this topic, which I highly recommend.

[@geirmyrvagnes8718]

Cool "fake tree". I don's see how this explains how sap can flow for days from a cut branch high up the tree.

[@yunissimos7325]

Trees sure are long 😂😂😮😮

[@richardgangemi3143]

You need a powerful pump to get water to the top of a hundred foot tree silly

[@cassandramarkland]

Nope, still don't understand pressure, cohesion or adhesion, or cohesion/tension theory. Nice try.

[@richardgangemi3143]

Ridiculous idea

[@mdhafizhasan755]

University of Virginia Tech already has proved it

[@Jesse.AlternateAccount]

​​@@mdhafizhasan755 How does it pull water up trees 200m tall without it boiling or exploding the trunk or exploding the leaves? And wouldn't it be boiling in the leaves too?