Name: Tinashe Katsuro

Student ID: 210304

Email: katsurot@africau.edu
Course title: Plant Botany and Physiology

TITLE
Testing for water potential in a potato
INTRODUCTION
Osmosis is a process that occurs at a cellular level that entails the spontaneous net movement
of water through a semipermeable membrane from a region of low solute concentration to a
region of high solute concentration in order to equalize the level of water in each region. The
cell of a potato consists of a plasma membrane. This membrane consists of a phospholipid
bilayer that separates what is defined as a cell and everything that it is not, or the environment.
What makes the membrane special is that it is selectively permeable. This means that the
membrane allows for certain molecules to pass through while blocking others. A solution is
when water is mixed with other molecules. In this case, water is called the solvent, or what the
solute is dissolved in. Most solutes are restricted from passing through the plasma membrane
and those that can pass need special carrier proteins that are part of the plasma membrane.
(Openstax 2013) The use of special carrier proteins requires the cell to input energy. Water is
different though; it moves freely in and out of the cell and even enhances through pores called
aquaporins. This entire process of free water movement is called osmosis. When the solution
outside a cell has a lower concentration of solute, the cell is said to be in a hypotonic solution
and the inside of the cell is hypertonic. When this happens in practice, water will, through
osmosis, naturally travel from an area of higher concentration to a lower concentration of
water. The cell will continually have water diffuse into it until the pressure of water becomes
too great for the cell’s membrane and cause it to lyse. (Britannica 2016) In a plant cell, the
presence of a cell wall prevents the cell from bursting, rather the increased pressure provides
support for the plant. The perfect conditions for an animal cell differ from that of plant cells. If
the potato cell is placed in a hypotonic solution, it will gain water because of osmosis and the
opposite will happen if it is placed in a hypertonic solution.
MATERIALS
● 12 beakers
● Sucrose solution
● Blade
● Moisture paper
● Cork borer
● Water
● Electric scale/balance
PROCEDURE
1. Stock solution was prepared
2. Different concentration of sucrose from the stock solution were prepared (0.10; 0.15;
0.20; 0.25; 0.30; 0.35; 0.40; 0.45; 0.50; 0.55; 0.60)
3. Distilled water was placed in the beaker and labeled, then sucrose solutions of different
solutions were put into different beakers and labeled
4. Cylinders of tissue, each 4 cm long, were cut on a potato using a Cork borer.
5. Each 4cm cylinder was weighed with a balance before immersing in the sucrose and
distilled water and the weight was recorded as initial weight.
6. The potatoes were immersed for 45 minutes
7. The potatoes were removed from the solutions and weighed for final weight and
recorded.

RESULTS

Solution Initial Weight (g) Final weight (g) Change in weight % Change in weight
(Distilled water and
sucrose solution)

Distilled water 4.29 4.76 0.47 10.96

0.10 4.38 4.81 0.43 9.82

0.15 4.45 4.75 0.30 6.74

0.20 4.23 4.49 0.26 6.15

0.25 4.60 4.89 0.29 6.30

0.30 4.30 4.48 0.18 4.17

0.35 4.41 4.51 0.10 2.27

0.40 4.35 4.44 0.09 2.07

0.45 4.36 4.31 -0.05 -1.15

0.50 4.23 4.13 -0.10 -2.36

0.55 4.47 4.31 -0.16 -3.58

0.60 4.18 4.01 -0.17 -4.07

DISCUSSION

The graph or my results shows that as the sucrose concentration increases, the lower the
percentage change in weight of a potato. This means that, in lower sucrose concentrations of a
potato a higher concentration of water is moving from a region of lower water potential to a
region of higher water potential thus inside the potato. From beakers with sucrose
concentration of 0.10 to 0.40 and distilled water, water were moving from the solution into the
potato thus increasing the final weight of the potato but from the sucrose concentration of 0.45
to 0.60, water were moving from the potato tissue to the sucrose solution meaning sucrose
concentration has higher water potential as compared to the potato tissue in those beakers.

Throughout the period our experiment went well, we did our experiment very slowly and tried
not to make any mistakes. As we all are a human there is no way that everything is going to be
perfect. Hence, our mistakes during the experiment were that we used different potatoes, this
affected them in that the potatoes might have different concentrations of sucrose in nature and
this ended up affecting the final results and the graph. Other mistakes that included human
error were not cutting the potatoes into equal slices, and also not using a moist paper for our
cylindrical potato tissues and this ended up making our tissues have different sizes and weight
as well as losing water too. Also when we measured the weight of potatoes, the balance had
drops of water on it and this affected our results.