What is Translocation

Answer: In translocation, water and other critical soluble nutrients are transferred from one area of the plant to another via the xylem and phloem, which is a biological word. It is most commonly found in all plants. Translocation is used to deliver the product or food that is created during photosynthesis to various areas of the plant. The phloem transports food molecules, and in particular, the section of the phloem known as shift tubes aids in the transfer of food particles up and down to all regions of the plant. The ATP energy is used, which produces the necessary osmotic pressure to make the food travel upward and downward; this is how the translocation occurs in plants.

When a substance in bulk moves from one point to another, it is because of the difference in pressure between the two points. The conducting tissues or the vascular tissues help in the bulk movement of a substance from one place to another in the plant. 

One such example of translocation in plants is the movement of sugars from sugar sources to sugar sinks. Here the sugar source refers to the place where the product is generally created or stored through photosynthesis, and the sinks refer to the place where sugar is needed for active growth. The sugar sinks can be fruits, roots or mature leaves. The sugar source is the shoot region which creates the material by photosynthesis.

There is a hypothesis called the mass flow hypothesis, which states that the cause of translocation of glucose and some other sugars inside the phloem is due to the non-stop water flow along with dissolved nutrients present between the source and the sink. The pressure is created due to the difference in the water concentration of the solution.