Programs in plant physiology focus on the processes of plants. Students learn about the cells and molecules of plants. They learn about plant nutrition and growth. They study how plants interact with their environments.

Plants have evolved some remarkable chemical substances, often to defend themselves against being eaten. Ironically, some of these chemicals are quite tasty to us or have other useful properties. The caffeine in coffee beans perks us up. Foxglove produces digitalis, which improves the pumping of weak hearts. Deadly nightshade contains atropine, which relaxes muscles when they spasm. These substances are remarkable, but even the most ordinary weed uses complex chemical processes to accomplish the daily tasks of living and growing. When you study plant physiology, you learn about these processes.

You can take a course in this subject as an undergraduate, but you are not likely to find a college that offers a major in it. This is a specialization that you need to study in graduate school. That means you first must get a bachelor's degree. Some likely majors are biology, botany, or agronomy. Usually these require four years of full-time study beyond high school. To be ready for graduate school in this field, you should be sure that your major includes physics, chemistry, organic chemistry, and calculus. Courses in biochemistry, plant anatomy, and physiology also will be helpful.

Your next step is to enter a graduate program. You can find programs in plant physiology at only a small number of graduate schools. In some schools you can study it as an interdepartmental program. In other schools you may be able to carve out the equivalent program for yourself. You might do this getting a master's and perhaps a doctorate in botany and specializing in plant physiology. There is a land-grant college offering graduate degrees in agricultural science in your state, just as there is in every state. So check there to see whether a plant physiology program exists, or whether you can put together such a program there.

A master's degree usually requires two years of full-time study beyond the bachelor's degree. This degree is not an option in some graduate programs, which proceed directly to the doctorate. And probably most people who study this field aim for jobs in research and college teaching, for which it is useful to get a doctoral degree. That usually requires an additional three years beyond the master's. It may take longer if you take on part-time work teaching or assisting with research, but such work helps offset costs and advances your career.

In graduate school you study a variety of biochemical processes that go on in plants. You study photosynthesis, respiration, and carbohydrate metabolism. You study DNA and RNA to understand the molecular basis of genetics. You learn how the plant's genes control the growth of the plant. You study the processes by which plants manufacture proteins, fats, sugars, starches, and other substances.

This is not simply textbook-learning or lectures. The graduate program is designed to teach you research skills, so you do much of your learning in the lab. Usually you take several seminars, in which you do research and present it to the class. You also study statistics so that you can draw meaningful conclusions from the data that experiments generate. The doctoral program culminates in an original research project that you write up as your dissertation.