Application of the effective formula of growth functional to quantitative description of growth of plant cells

Abstract

An effective formula describing expansive plant growth is derived from the modified Lockhart/Ortega-type equation. Its applicability is demonstrated on selected experimental data extracted from available literature. Quantitative information about the “diffusion rate” (k 2) of the growth factors is obtained for two different model species in plant science: Arabidopsis thaliana L. belongs to the dicots and Zea mays L. belongs to the monocots. It is shown that the value of the diffusion rate may be useful in comparing different datasets and serve as a measure of reproducibility of standard measurements. Analysis of the formula and fits allows to identify and suggest a set of criteria for reporting future experiments, which would improve comparability and reproducibility of the results.