Transpiration

• Transpiration – the giving off of moisture through

the surface of the leaves and other parts of the
plant.
• Plants serve to move water to the surface
penetrated by the root systems.
• Only minute portions of the water absorbed by
the root systems of plants remain in the plant
tissues; virtually all is discharged to the
atmosphere as vapor through transpiration.
• Due to osmotic pressure, soil water will enter the
root membrane and once inside the root, the
water is transferred through the plant to the
intercellular space within the leaves.
• Transpiration results when the plant
undergoes photosynthesis – the leaf use
carbon dioxide from air and small portion of
available water to manufacture carbohydrates
for plant growth, the water escapes through
the open stomata of the leaves as air enters
the leaf.
• 95% of daily transpiration occurs during
daylight hours, plant growth normally ceases
when temperature drop to near 40C and
transpiration becomes small.
Fig. 4.4
 Plant Transpiration
Most water absorption occurs in upper half of root zone
• Plant type becomes an important factor in
controlling transpiration when available soil
moisture is limited.
• As the upper layers of the soil dry out, shallow
rooted species can no longer obtain water and
wilt while deep rooted species continue to
transpire until the soil moisture at greater depths
is reduced to the welting point.
• Transpiration per unit area also depends on the
density of vegetative cover.
• With widely spaced plants(low cover density) not
all solar radiation reaches the plants and some of
it is absorbed at the soil surface.
• Plant type also influences transpiration during drought
conditions, even with specified soil-moisture
conditions.
• Plant Types
1. Xerophytes (desert species) – have fewer stomata
per unit area and less surface area, transpire relatively
little water.
2. Phreatophytes – have root systems reaching to the
water table and transpire at rates largely independent
of moisture content in the zone of aeration.
3. Mesophytes – plants at the temperate zones, have
ability to reduce transpiration during periods of
drought.
 4. Hydrophytes – aquatic plants
• All plants can control stomatal opening to
some extent.
• Most measurements of transpiration are made
with a phytometer, a large vessel filled with
soil in which one or more plants are rooted.
The only escape of moisture is by transpiration
(the soil surface is sealed to prevent
evaporation), which can be determined by
weighing the plant and container at desired
intervals of time.
• Ceramic and Piche atmometers have been
widely used in transpiration studies. Such
instruments automatically feed water from a
reservoir to an exposed, wetted surface. The
change in content of the reservoir serves as an
index to transpiration.
• Evapotranspiration – total evaporation, the
total moisture that leaves the area by
evaporation from the soil, snow, water
surfaces and other surfaces plus that
transpired from plants.
Evaporation & Transpiration

Fig. 4.1
• Consumptive use – the total evaporation from an
area plus the water used directly in building plant
tissue.
• Potential evapotranspiration – the water loss
which will occur if at no time there is deficiency
of water in the soil for the use of vegetation.
• Evapotranspirometer – containers with sealed
bottoms that evapotranspiration is observed.
• Lysimeter – containers with pervious bottoms or
with a mechanism for maintaining a negative
pressure at the bottom that evapotranspiration is
observed.