By Ann Filmer, Department of Plant Sciences

"Tom Buckley, professor in the Department of Plant Sciences, UC Davis, received a 2018–2019 Seed Grant from UC Davis Global Affairs for the project “Applying a Revolutionary New Method to Measure Leaf Water Potential in Intact, Functioning Leaves.”

Global Affairs partners with UC Davis faculty to take on global innovative research, service, and engagement projects. The interdisciplinary projects help develop new partnerships, long-term collaborations, and opportunities to advance the health for people, animals, and the planet.

Buckley will work colleagues Andrew Merchant (University of Sydney, Australia) and Carel Windt (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany), who will visit his lab in 2019 and 2020 to set up a benchtop NMR system that measures leaf water content in real time, on intact, photosynthesizing, and transpiring leaves. They will use the system to make repeated measurements of water potential on intact, transpiring leaves for the first time, to resolve important questions about how water potential affects parameters of leaf function such as hydraulic conductance, photosynthetic capacity, and stomatal conductance."

Read the full story at the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences.