Question

Anna waters her plants with salty water to help them grow better. Is her thinking correct?

Answer 1

this reminds me of osmosis pressure and tonicity of the environment in and ouside of the root cells. Salty water will affect the extent of water absorption at the root.

Answer 2

It's worse for the plant to use salty water. This creates a hypotonic environment outside the plant root cells. Think about it this way, because there is more solute in the salty water (salt), there is, by ratio, less solvent (water).

By definition of osmosis, water moves down its concentration gradient. Since there is less water outside the cell, plant root cells will lose the water they contain and begin to shrink (not good for the plant!)

This about it this way, what happens when you put sugar all over fresh strawberries and leave them out? After a few minutes, the strawberries become very wet-looking. This is because the water left the cells to the outside environment. The sugar then dissolves in that water.

Answer 3

@blues gives an excellent answer here: http://openstudy.com/study#/updates/4f904bdee4b000310fae6024
In short, it depends.

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