Praying Plants: What Does it Really Mean?

If you look around on the internet for “the cause of praying leaves” you will find a ton of conflicting opinions. Many say it is a stress response to too much light, too little humidity, or too much water. These all cause the plant to increase its need for transpiration, so the plant’s response is to curl up its leaf edges to open the stomata as much as possible. This stress response is recognizably different from “praying” leaves, but is often conflated with the latter in the online debate. I found an article on turgor pressure and why plants pray, which I find extremely insightful, and want to share with everybody.

This is from reddit user Growmie, posted on November 20th of 2024

“Praying leaves = nothing to do with stress. All about being happy.

Praying leaves are the perfect sweet spot for the plant. It’s normal for them to pray after watering as well. Consider praying leaves to be a healthy sign of a fast growing plant. Nothing to worry about unless your leaves are turning yellow. Praying leaves is also a sign of a specific pressure coming from the plant itself, i will find the name of it and post back. Praying leaves means your plants are in the perfect environment and loving it.

Turgor Pressure Cannabis Plants “Praying” .

This ability to develop enough water pressure in the trunk and in the stems of the leaves to lift them up like this is the result of maximum transpiration. This means that the leaves are getting enough energy from the light to evaporate enough water from the leaves so as to create maximum suction up through the roots, giving you maximum uptake of water and nutrients from the soil. This is an indication that all is as it should be, and the leaves are pointing toward the thing that is most important to the plant at the moment, the light.

Potassium has a role to play in maintaining turgidity of stomatal guard cells. Turgor is the pressure exerted by water inside the cell of the plant. A sufficient level of turgor pressure should be maintained so that the plant keeps growing. Without sufficient turgor pressure within plant cells, plants will wilt.

Turgor pressure helps keep a plant standing upright with its leaves outstretched or tipped up to absorb as much light as possible. When turgor pressure is high, this allows maximum expansion of cannabis leaves to receive adequate or more sunlight.

Yellow leaves often result from nutritional deficiencies. But if you know the nutrient situation is optimum and observe the praying leaves go from green to yellow, it could be triggered by light stress. In that case, you may move the lights further away or rotate your plants around to allow the stressed leaves to get more shade.

Among cannabis growers the term “praying” referring to the cannabis plants gets bandied about, turgor pressure scientifically defines plant cell rigidity and why cannabis leaves appear to be “praying” towards the light. Cannabis leaves will expand outwards as much as possible when turgor pressure is high. This allows for the expansion of cannabis leaves allowing for more adequate sunlight. If you see your plants reaching towards the light and they appear healthy overall, then I would be saying hallelujah in rejoice.”

Resources:​

1. Cram W.J. (1976) “Negative Feedback Regulation of Transport in Cells. The Maintenance of Turgor, Volume and Nutrient Supply.” In: Lüttge U., Pitman M.G. (eds) Transport in Plants II. Encyclopedia of Plant Physiology, vol 2 / A. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
2. Zimmerman, U. (1978). “Physics of Turgor- and Osmoregulation”. Ann. Rev. Plant Physiol. 1978. 29:121-48. Institute of Biophysical Chemistry, Nuclear Research Center, Julich, FRG.
3. Dietrich & Keller. (1991). “Turgor Pressure”. Science Direct. Advances in Agronomy.
4. Villarreal, Mariana Ruiz. LadyofHats. (2007). “Turgor Pressure on Plant Cells Diagram”. Wikimedia Commons – Public Domain.