What determines carbon partitioning between competing sinks?

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Abstract
Carbohydrate sinks have been described by their ability to attract photosynthate, denoted by sink strength, and by their priority rank ordering for supply in the presence of a reduced availability of photosynthate. Sink strength has been defined as the rate of carbohydrate flow into a sink, but this flow rate is also dependent upon supply, other sinks, and resistance to flow of the transport pathway, so it is not a property of the sink alone. It is a property of the entire system. Hence sink strength defined as a flow rate is not a valid descriptor of a sink.However, a simple model of phloem flow based upon Munch's ideas and with saturable unloading has many properties similar to a plant's carbohydrate source-sink relations, including priorities of sinks, and leads to a set of sink descriptors. This model's ability to mimic observed source-sink relations is reviewed here.Keywords: Sink, sink strength, priority, partitioning, Michaelis-Menten, carbon-11.

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