Concentration and delivery of abscisic acid in xylem sap are greater at the shoot base than at a target leaf nearer to the shoot apex

Samples of xylem sap from 5-week-old Ricinus communis L. were obtained after severing a lamina, or shoot, from plants pressurized at the roots with air to raise hydrostatic xylem water potentials to atmospheric. In situ sap flow gauges, and mass flow measurements, showed that removing the lamina approximately doubled sap flow rate through the petiole stub that remained attached to the plant. This was a consequence of flow out of the roots being diverted along this low-resistance pathway and away from leaves higher in the canopy. Leaf and whole shoot excision temporarily released extra solutes in to sap as it discharged from the cut petiole or from the hypocotyl stump. This contamination prevented the use of sap extracted from detached lamina by overpressurizing in a Scholander bomb, To minimise distortions to sap flow and wound-induced contamination, estimates of in planta concentration and delivery (concentration x sap flow rate) of ABA and osmolality in xylem sap were made using sap flow rates measured before excision and concentrations in flowing sap collected approximately 30 min after excision. At this time, effects of excision on solute contamination had subsided. The approach revealed that withholding water from upper roots increased ABA delivery from roots into the shoot base 3-fold. However, approximately half this ABA was lost en route to the youngest fully open leaf. This loss of ABA may explain the slow stomatal response to drying of upper roots shown by R. communis.