Abstract
The first published account of the phenomenon of root pressure appeared in 1727 when Stephen Hales described bleeding and bleeding pressures developed by a grapevine that had been pruned heavily1. Fearing that the vigor of the vine might be reduced by the heavy bleeding, he tied a pig’s bladder tightly over the stump. Later he was surprised to find sap had been forced into the bladder under pressure causing it to swell. He devised methods of studying this pressure that he termed “root pressure” and similar methods in which mercury manometers are attached to the stump of a decapitated plant are still used today. Hales recorded the development of a pressure (107 cm. of mercury) that would be capable of raising water about 40 feet. Since his early experiments many observations of root pressures have been made. Root pressure may be defined as a pressure developing in the tracheary elements of the xylem as a result of the metabolic activities of roots. The pressures registered may vary enormously not only in the different plants but in the same plant under different conditions.
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© 1956 Springer-Verlag OHG. Berlin · Göttingen · Heidelberg
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Stocking, C.R. (1956). Root pressure. In: Adriani, M.J., et al. Pflanze und Wasser / Water Relations of Plants. Handbuch der Pflanzenphysiologie / Encyclopedia of Plant Physiology, vol 3. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-94678-3_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-94678-3_31
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