A quantitative approach to developing more mechanistic gas exchange models for field grown potato: A new insight into chemical and hydraulic signalling

In this study we introduce new gas exchange models that are developed under natural conditions of field grown potato. The new models could explain about 85% of the stomatal conductance variations, which was much higher than the well-known gas exchange models such as the Ball-Berry model [Ball, Woodrow, Berry, 1987. In: Nijhoff, M. (Eds.), Progress in Photosynthesis Research, vol. 4. Dordrecht, The Netherlands, pp. 5.221–5.224]. To overcome the limitations of previous models in simulating stomatal conductance when plants are exposed to drought stress, we proposed a down-regulating factor of chemical and hydraulic signalling on stomatal conductance as exp(−β[ABA])exp(−δ|ψ|) in which [ABA] and |ψ| are xylem ABA concentration and absolute value of leaf or stem water potential. In this study we found that stem water potential could be a very reliable indicator of how plant water status affects the stomatal conductance regulation. While previous models considered the same weighting for relative humidity and photosynthesis rate, we found that relative humidity has a more pronounced regulating effect on stomatal conductance than photosynthesis rate and the weightings for relative humidity and photosynthesis rate, respectively, were significantly higher and lower than unity.