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Articles

Chloroplast Response to Low Leaf Water Potentials

I. Role of Turgor ¹

^a Departments of Botany and Agronomy, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 61801

The effect of decreases in turgor on chloroplast activity was studied by measuring the photochemical activity of intact sunflower (Helianthus annuus L. cv. Russian Mammoth) leaves having low water potentials. Leaf turgor, calculated from leaf water potential and osmotic potential, was found to be affected by the dilution of cell contents by water in the cell walls, when osmotic potentials were measured with a thermocouple psychrometer. After the correction of measurements of leaf osmotic potential, both the thermocouple psychrometer and a pressure chamber indicated that turgor became zero in sunflower leaves at leaf water potentials of –10 bars. Since most of the loss in photochemical activity occurred at water potentials below –10 bars, it was concluded that turgor had little effect on the photochemical activity of the leaves.

¹ This work was supported by Grant B-036-ILL from the Office of Water Resources Research, United States Department of Interior.

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