Acclimation of CO(2) Assimilation in Cotton Leaves to Water Stress and Salinity.

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L. cv Acala SJ2) plants were exposed to three levels of osmotic or matric potentials. The first was obtained by salt and the latter by withholding irrigation water. Plants were acclimated to the two stress types by reducing the rate of stress development by a factor of 4 to 7. CO(2) assimilation was then determined on acclimated and nonacclimated plants. The decrease of CO(2) assimilation in salinity-exposed plants was significantly less in acclimated as compared with nonacclimated plants. Such a difference was not found under water stress at ambient CO(2) partial pressure. The slopes of net CO(2) assimilation versus intercellular CO(2) partial pressure, for the initial linear portion of this relationship, were increased in plants acclimated to salinity of -0.3 and -0.6 megapascal but not in nonacclimated plants. In plants acclimated to water stress, this change in slopes was not significant. Leaf osmotic potential was reduced much more in acclimated than in nonacclimated plants, resulting in turgor maintenance even at -0.9 megapascal. In nonacclimated plants, turgor pressure reached zero at approximately -0.5 megapascal. The accumulation of Cl(-) and Na(+) in the salinity-acclimated plants fully accounted for the decrease in leaf osmotic potential. The rise in concentration of organic solutes comprised only 5% of the total increase in solutes in salinity-acclimated and 10 to 20% in water-stress-acclimated plants. This acclimation was interpreted in light of the higher protein content per unit leaf area and the enhanced ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase activity. At saturating CO(2) partial pressure, the declined inhibition in CO(2) assimilation of stress-acclimated plants was found for both salinity and water stress.