Hydraulic Resistance of Plants. III. Effects of NaCl in Barley and Lupin

Abstract

Barley (salt-tolerant) and white lupin (salt-sensitive) were grown in sand in pots designed to fit within a pressure chamber. The sand was irrigated with a nutrient solution to which increasing amounts of NaCl were added daily in increments of 10-25 mol m^-3. For a range of transpiration rates (Q), the hydrostatic pressure of the leaf xylem sap of an intact plant was measured by applying sufficient air pressure (p) to the root system to raise the pressure of this sap to zero. The relation between p and Q was linear, i.e. of the form p = p_o + rQ. P_o, the intercept on the p axis, reflects the difference in osmotic pressure across the root, and it is assumed that r, the slope of this relation, gives the hydraulic resistance of the plant.

In NaCl-treated barley, r remained constant as the NaCl in the soil solution was increased to 200 mol m^-3 over 10 days, and differed little from that of the controls. P_o increased by about the same amount as the increase in osmotic pressure of the soil solution. This indicates near-perfect osmotic behaviour by the roots, and consistent with this, osmotic pressure of sap expressed from the cut shoot base generally changed little with increasing NaCl, for a given transpiration rate.

In NaCl-treated lupin, by contrast, r increased continually from 25 to 150 mol m^-3 NaCI, when it was four times that of the controls. Beyond 75 mol m^-3, p_o increased less than increases in the osmotic pressure of the soil solution, which suggests that salts were then leaking into the root xylem. However, the osmotic pressure of the xylem sap flowing through the petiole did not start to increase until 3 days later when the external solution was over 120 mol m^-3, suggesting that substantial amounts of NaCl were being removed from the xylem sap before it reached the petiole.