2.3. Relative water content
Relative water content was carried out according to the procedure
of Barrs and Weatherley (1962) and Gonzalez and
Gonzalez-Vilar (2001) with slight modifications. Leaf disks
of 2.5 cm diameters were excised from the middle of the lowest
leaf blades for RWC assays. After fresh weight (FW) determination,
the disks were floated in distilled water for 4 h. The turgid
samples were quickly blotted dry prior to the
determination of the turgid weight (TW). The dry weight
(DW) of the samples was determined after being oven-dried
at 80 C for 24 h. RWC was calculated using the following formula: