Matric Water Potential of Leaf Tissue--Measurement and Significance

A thermocouple psychrometer method, previously described foruse in determining tissue and sap water potentials, has beenadapted for determining matric potentials. Matric values ranging from approximately zero to –10 x10⁵ Pa were observed with wilting wheat leaves. Mean valuesof total tissue water potential and of its solute (osmotic),matric, and cell wall pressure components were –16.6,–18.3, –30 and +4.7 Pa x 10⁵, respectively. Matric potentials are often ignored in investigations of plantwater relations. This practice is shown to result in underestimationof wall pressures (in this case by a mean of 64 per cent) andsometimes in spuriously negative values.