What are C4 plants?
Basically they are plants that undertake photosynthesis in a different way enabling them to continue to grow during hot and dry conditions. To better understand this lets quickly recap on photosynthesis.
All plants require carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in order for photosynthesis to occur and plants obtain this carbon dioxide via tiny openings on the underside of the plant leaf, these tiny openings are called stomata. The stomata also provide the exit of H2O from the plant.
When soil water resources are low small openings usually on the underside of the leaves called the stomata close to reduce the loss of water from the plant. This also reduces the incoming carbon dioxide as plants absorb CO2 through these same stomata. Without C02 plants cannot photosynthesis and growth halts. When a plant is wilting it has reached this point.
Some plants have adapted to overcome this and one particular group of grasses and tropical plants, the C4 plants, are able to close stomatal pores in order to reduce water loss whilst still obtaining carbon dioxide thereby maintaining photosynthesis in hot and dry conditions.
Welcome to our Online Store where you can find Forest Garden/ Permaculture plants, seeds, bulbs and Polyculture multi-packs along with digital goods and services such as Online Courses, Webinars, eBooks, and Online Consultancy. We hope you enjoy the store and find something you like :) It's your purchases that keep our Project going. Yuu can also find our full list of trees. shrubs and herbs for forest gardens on our website here
C4 Plants, Examples, and C4 Families
Examples of C4 species are the economically important crops corn or maize (Zea mays), sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), and millets.
Other examples include, couch or bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon), barnyard grass (Echinocloa spp.), goosegrass (Eleusine indica), Johnson grass (Sorghum halepense), cogon (Imperata cylindrica), common purslane or alusiman (Portulaca oleracea), crabgrass (Digitaria sanguinalis), several species of pigweed (Amaranthus spp.), carabao grass (Paspalum conjugatum), itchgrass (Rottboellia exaltata), and Russian thistle or tumbleweed (Salsola kali) (Llewellyn 2000; Moore et al. 2003).
We are working on a model to use these plants to produce seed free biomass for mulching an establishing forest farm. See here for more on that.
Regenerative Landscape Design - Online Interactive Course
Want to learn how to design, build and manage regenerative landscapes? Join us for our Regenerative Landscape Design - Online Interactive Course from May 1st to Sep 13th, 2023.
We're super excited about running the course and look forward to providing you with the confidence, inspiration, and opportunity to design, build and manage regenerative landscapes, gardens, and farms that produce food and other resources for humans while enhancing biodiversity.

Regenerative Landscape Design Online Course
You can find out all about the course here and right now we have a 20% discount on the full enrollment fees. Just use the promo code RLD2023 in the section of the registration form to receive your discount.
We are looking forward to providing you with this unique online learning experience - as far as we know, the very first of its kind. If you are thinking of reasons why you should do this course and whether this course is suitable for you, take a look here where we lay it all out. Looking forward to it!
We're super excited about running the course and look forward to providing you with the confidence, inspiration, and opportunity to design, build and manage regenerative landscapes, gardens, and farms that produce food and other resources for humans while enhancing biodiversity.
![]() |
Regenerative Landscape Design Online Course |
You can find out all about the course here and right now we have a 20% discount on the full enrollment fees. Just use the promo code RLD2023 in the section of the registration form to receive your discount.
We are looking forward to providing you with this unique online learning experience - as far as we know, the very first of its kind. If you are thinking of reasons why you should do this course and whether this course is suitable for you, take a look here where we lay it all out. Looking forward to it!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Support Our Project
If you appreciate the work we are doing you can show your support in several ways.
- Make a purchase of plants or seeds from our Bionursery or Online Store
- Consider joining us for one of our Courses or Online Courses
- Comment, like, and share our content on social media.
- Donate directly via PayPal to balkanecologyproject@gmail.com or via FTX Pay
If you appreciate the work we are doing you can show your support in several ways.
- Make a purchase of plants or seeds from our Bionursery or Online Store
- Consider joining us for one of our Courses or Online Courses
- Comment, like, and share our content on social media.
- Donate directly via PayPal to balkanecologyproject@gmail.com or via FTX Pay
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment