Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 3.6
(continued)
proportional to growth rate (d
W
/d
t
) and leaf weight (
W
):
R
=
r
( d
W
/d
t
) +
uW
.
Then, the parameter
r
multiplied by the final leaf mass gives an estimate of the
respiratory energy used for construction of the leaf. Alternatively, in principle
one can identify and quantify all the biochemical components of a leaf and
sum up their individual costs of construction (Penning de Vries et al. 1974),
but this is not very practical. A more practical variant on this approach, which
has proven reliable, estimates the energy required to construct a leaf by mea-
suring the energy released on combustion of the leaf tissue (Williams et al.
1989; Griffin 1994).
