Grapes growing on a vine are observed to shrink slightly during the day, only gaining in size at night. You decide to do an experiment where you sever the phloem, but not the xylem, of the stem that supplies a cluster of grapes. You expect to see that for the grapes in the experimental cluster:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The shrinking during the day will become more noticeable because the phloem is responsible for transporting sugars produced during photosynthesis from the leaves to the rest of the plant, including the grapes. By severing the phloem, the grapes will not receive the sugars during the day, causing more noticeable shrinkage. However, the grapes should still recover their size at night due to the water uptake from the xylem, but they will no longer increase in size as the sugars produced during photosynthesis are not being transported to the grapes.

Grapes Growing on a Vine Are Observed to Shrink Slightly