Abstract
The transpirational flux of water from soil to atmosphere is perhaps not in itself of direct physiological importance to the plant, but the water deficits which are a necessary concomitant of the transpirational flux have a profound effect on growth and metabolism. It was for this reason that when, some years ago, I was faced with a study of the water relations of the commercial cotton crop in E. Africa, I concentrated on water deficits rather than transpiration rates. A technique was developed for estimating the average water deficit in the leaves of a group (plot) of plants growing in the field. This consisted of punching leaf disks and expressing their water content as a percentage of their water content when fully turgid (relative turgidity). The disks were rendered turgid by floating on water (Weatherley 1950 Barrs 1962 and Weatherley 1962).
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References
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© 1965 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Weatherley, P.E. (1965). Some Investigations on Water Deficit and Transpiration Under Controlled Conditions. In: SlavÃk, B. (eds) Water Stress in Plants. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3593-4_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3593-4_5
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