This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Web of Science (28) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Levitt, J. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Levitt, J. Agricola Articles by Levitt, J.

Articles

Recovery of Turgor by Wilted, Excised Cabbage Leaves in the Absence of Water Uptake ¹

A New Factor in Drought Acclimation

Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford, California 94305, Department of Plant Biology, Stanford, California 94305

Cabbage leaves excised from a fully turgid plant wilt within 20 minutes to 2 hours (depending on plant age) with a loss of about 10% relative water content (RWC). If droughted for 2 to 4 days in a high relative humidity leaf chamber, they may acclimate, recovering their turgor without the absorption of water, in fact at a loss of 15 to 25% RWC. This turgor recovery in the absence of water uptake occurs only if (a) the rate of water loss is slow enough (about 1-5% RWC per day after the first 24 hours drought loss of about 15% RWC), (b) if the leaves are no longer growing actively. Osmotic adjustment accompanies the turgor adjustment, but cannot be the cause in the absence of water uptake. The recovery of turgor by wilted cabbage leaves in the absence of water uptake cannot be explained by (a) transfer of reserve water from apoplast to symplast either from the cell walls or from the vessel lumens by cavitation or (b) metabolic loss of dry matter and gain of water. It can be explained by a contraction of the cell walls around the partially dehydrated protoplasts, until they regain their elastic extensibility. These proposed cell wall changes during drought acclimation are therefore the opposite of those occurring during growth. This hypothesis therefore explains the long recognized inverse relation between growth and acclimation. Two predictions of this hypothesis were tested and substantiated.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				P. Schopfer Biomechanics of plant growth Am. J. Botany, October 1, 2006; 93(10): 1415 - 1425. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				P. Boominathan, R. Shukla, A. Kumar, D. Manna, D. Negi, P. K. Verma, and D. Chattopadhyay Long Term Transcript Accumulation during the Development of Dehydration Adaptation in Cicer arietinum Plant Physiology, July 1, 2004; 135(3): 1608 - 1620. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. G. Marshall and E. B. Dumbroff Turgor Regulation via Cell Wall Adjustment in White Spruce Plant Physiology, January 1, 1999; 119(1): 313 - 320. [Abstract] [Full Text]