How wind and dust stress affect plant growth and development?

Answer 1

Let me crack my knuckles, so I can tackle this question!

Wind affects plants by drying them out. Imagine you have a wet paper towel and you blow lots of air over it. It'll dry out! The water can be lost through the stomata when the plant is trying to get CO2 to essentially feed itself.

Wind also affects plants by physically buffeting them around. Wind can blow branches off, rip off leaves, break pieces of the plants, etc.

Dust can stress plants by covering up their nice green photosynthesizing parts such as leaves. If light can't reach the photosynthetic machinery, no photosynthesis can occur and the plant will essentially starve. Dust also can cover leaf stomata which means no water out and no CO2 in.

And so how do some plants survive this? They have modifications such as being bendy, having leaf hairs to protect the stomata from wind and dust, having thick leaves with a smaller surface area so escape so readily..... There are a lot of adaptions for plants to survive this.

I would check out how the stomata work in a plant physiology textbook if you need more information.