Carbon Partitioning to Whole versus Surgically Modified Ovules of Pea: An Application of theIn VivoMeasurement of Carbon Flows over many Hours Using the Short-Lived Isotope Carbon-11

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Abstract
Continuous in vivo measurements of the partitioning of recently fixed photo-assimilate to individual ovules within a single pod of Pisum are reported. Also, partitioning to attached surgically modified ovules as well as partitioning to the solution bathing these ovules is described. Partitioning to whole ovules was found to vary up and down by about 10% over a time span of several hundred minutes, while that to surgically modified ovules continually fell and was reduced by about 65% 400 min post surgery. Partitioning from the seed coat to the bathing solution was reduced by 80%, so that partitioning of photo-assimilate from the pod to the bathing solution had been reduced by 93% and had virtually stopped. This observation throws some doubt upon the use of long-term (> 200 min) measurements of photo-assimilate efflux from attached seed coats in the study of photo-assimilate movement into ovules. This work is based upon a method of analysing carbon-11 tracer profiles which does not require that these profiles be corrected for radioactive decay, thus enabling this short-lived isotope to be used for quantitative studies of indefinite duration by continuous or multiple pulse labelling.

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