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2 - Cavitation. A review: past, present and future

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2010

J. A. Milburn
Affiliation:
Department of Botany, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia.
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Summary

SUMMARY

A major review on xylem and its vulnerability to cavitation and embolisation has been published recently by Tyree & Sperry (1989). This review is intended to augment their more comprehensive overview adding additional background and presenting the subject from a somewhat different viewpoint. The coverage traces the development of an interest in cavitation as a curiosity, using newly available technology, towards the present day when it has become a major field of international research. This review stresses the way in which information has been gleaned from very different model systems, all of which contibute to our understanding of the mechanisms involved in cavitation, embolisation and its reversal. In seeking beneficial results by application of this knowledge, e.g.in forestry or horticulture, it is important to remember that a broad scope has much to commend it.

AUDIO DETECTION OF CAVITATION

According to my notebooks we first detected acoustic signals from plants on 6th February 1963. The sounds were produced on a record-player amplification system and filled our converted-museum laboratory in Aberdeen university. The elation produced was partially on account of the champagne-cork sounds which flooded the laboratory, but also from the fact that earlier work in previous months, based on the removal of embolisation, had predicted they might be found. Sadly, validation of such predictions is rare and not often so easily realised in science! The main avenue of this research was the uptake of water by seriously waterstressed leaves.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1993

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