Different root parts with or without increased iron-reducing activities have been studied in iron-deficient and iron-sufficient control sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L. Monohil hybrid). The distal root parts of iron-deficient plants, 0 to 5 mm from the root apex, were capable to reduce Fe(III)-chelates and contained concentrations of flavins near 700 m, two characteristics absent in the 5 to 10 mm sections of iron-deficient plants and the whole root of iron-sufficient plants. Flavin-containing root tips had large pools of carboxylic acids and high activities of enzymes involved in organic acid metabolism. In iron-deficient yellow root tips there was a large increase in carbon fixation associated to an increase in phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase activity. Part of this carbon was used, through an increase in mitochondrial activity, to increase the capacity to produce reducing power, whereas another part was exported via xylem. Root respiration was increased by iron deficiency. In sugar beet iron-deficient roots flavins would provide a suitable link between the increased capacity to produce reduced nucleotides and the plasma membrane associated ferric chelate reductase enzyme(s). Iron-deficient roots had a large oxygen consumption rate in the presence of cyanide and hydroxisalycilic acid, suggesting that the ferric chelate reductase enzyme is able to reduce oxygen in the absence of Fe(III)-chelates.
The application of chlorophyll fluorescence measurements to screening barley (Hordeum vulgare 1.) genotypes for salinity tolerance has been investigated. Excised barley leaves were cut under water and incubated with the cut end immersed in water or in a 100-mM NaCl solution, either in the dark or in high light. Changes in rapid fluorescence kinetics occurred in excised barley leaves exposed to the saline solution only when the incubation was carried out in the presence of high light. Fluorescence changes consisted of decreases in the variable to maximum fluorescence ratio and in increases in the relative proportion of variable fluorescence leading to point I in the Kautsky fluorescence induction curve. These relative increases in fluorescence at point I appeared to arise from a delayed plastoquinone reoxidation in the dark, since they disappeared after short, far-red illumination, which is known to excite photosystem I preferentially. We show that a significant correlation existed between some fluorescence parameters, measured after a combined salt and high-light treatment, and other independent measurements of salinity tolerance. These results suggest that chlorophyll fluorescence, and especially the relative fluorescence at point I in the Kautsky fluorescence induction curve, could be used for the screening of barley genotypes for salinity tolerance.
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