Leaf physiological and biochemical characteristics
Fig. 1 illustrates the progression of leaf water content after the
water treatments. Average leaf water content fell from 76.0%
at 14 DPA to 68.2% at 28 DPA. Transgenic plants (PPDK and
PCK) consistently showed higher leaf water content than WT
under different soil moisture treatments at DPA of 14 and 28.
As water stress increased, transgenic plants showed greater
ability to preserve higher leaf water content than WT plants,
especially at 14 DPA. Average leaf water contents of transgenic
plants at 14 DPA under the WW, MD and SD treatments
were respectively 3.4%, 3.5% and 4.7% higher than those of WT
plants (Fig. 1).