Relative water content
Relative water content was carried out according to the proce-
dure 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) determi-
nation, the disks were floated in distilled water for 4 h. The tur-
gid 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 for-
mula: RWC (%) = (FW DW)/(TW DW) * 100