Despite the growing importance of pomegranate and the ever
more frequent water shortages experienced in the most suitable
regions for its growth, to the best of our knowledge, no information
exists on the mechanisms developed by pomegranate trees to
confront drought. For these reasons, the present study was undertaken
to investigate plant water relations in adult pomegranate
trees under field conditions, in order to establish the stress avoidance
and stress tolerance mechanisms developed in response to
water stress and recovery. The extent of elastic and osmotic adjustments,
turgor maintenance, leaf conductance, leaf water potential
at the turgor loss point, relative water content at the turgor loss
point and relative apoplastic water content were measured.