What are assimilates?

Metabolism and energy exchange are the basics

• The plants in your garden are living beings and, like all life forms, they must ingest food. In biology, nutrition is therefore defined very generally as the uptake of substances so that energy can be obtained.
• This process is also called assimilation, whereby the layman usually means the nutrition of the plants. However, the term serves as a general description in biology. It is always about the fact that substances are absorbed from the environment and converted into the body's own substances through metabolic processes. Hence there are things as different as carbon assimilation or nitrogen assimilation.
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• The plants in your garden live from what is known as autotrophic assimilation. They do not absorb organic, but inorganic substances. These are light and water and CO₂. These are then converted into organic substances through what is known as photosynthesis.

Assimilates as products of metabolism

• Once your plants have finished converting the low-energy and inorganic substances, you now have organic and high-energy substances. These are called assimilates.
• Several assimilates arise during photosynthesis. On the one hand, oxygen is generated and released into the atmosphere. On the other hand, glucose is produced and this is stored by the plant for its own energy requirements.


Relationship between photosynthesis and cellular respiration - simply explained

Photosynthesis and cell respiration are two metabolic processes that ...

• The chloroplasts (these are organelles, i.e. cell components) are required for the production of the assimilates, but they are not the storage location. After they are made, the plant extracts them from the leaves and stores them in the places where they are needed. This can be the root, but also the fruit.
• With a knowledge of Latin, the definition can also be derived from the word itself. In German, the term “assimilatio” is best rendered with “incorporation”.