Why plants store their food in the form of starch..?
Plants that have dormant periods to survive store energy rich food as starch. These plants store enough that they have energy to restart with and sufficient energy to maintain a basal metabolism for the entire dormant period. First starch is not water soluble so does not pull water into the storage cells or disrupt the water balance. Starch molecules package more energy into less space than glucose or sucrose yet they can be released easily for use so they maximize both storage and mobilization. Plants do not transport the glucose directly to storage. Sucrose is the form carbohydrates are transported in a plant stem for reason that it is nonreducing so does not react with oxygen in transport through the stem to the specialized storage plastids. Osmolality (water balance) for sucrose is better than glucose and for each single molecule transported about twice the energy is moved. Sucrose is also easily hydrolyzed to equimolar amounts of glucose and fructose for use in cellular respiratio
