Lateral movement of water and sugar across xylem in sugarcane stalks.

Laterally connected vascular bundles in the nodes of sugarcane (Saccharum species cv. Pindar) stalks allow a rapid redistribution of water across the stalk should the vascular continuity be partly disrupted. Tritiated water supplied to the roots exchanged rapidly between the xylem and storage tissue so that net movement up the stalk was slow. The half-time for exchange in a labeled stalk was about 4 hours so that the entire water content of a sugarcane stalk can turn over at least once in a single day. No rapid flux of sugar between xylem and phloem or xylem and storage tissue was detected. Functional xylem contained only low sugar concentrations: less than 0.3% w/v in the stalk and less than 0.02% w/v in the leaf. Previous reports of high sugar levels (9% w/v) in sugarcane stalk xylem reflect some degree of xylem blockage followed by a slow equilibration with free space sugars in the storage tissue.

Control of invertase synthesis in sugar cane. Loci of auxin and glucose effects.

In tissue slices from rapidly expanding internodes of sugar cane the vacuolar invertase level is a function of the balance between synthesis and destruction. The enzyme is destroyed in the tissue at an approximately constant rate with a half time of 2 hours. Invertase synthesis is regulated by both auxin and glucose. From studies with inhibitors of protein and RNA synthesis we conclude that auxin alters the rate of synthesis and glucose increases the rate of destruction of messenger RNA required for the production of invertase.