Entry of pesticides into the plant symplast as measured by their loss from an ambient solution

Abstract

AbstractA method was developed to determine the extent of penetration of substances into the plant symplast. The known apoplastic dye trisodium 3‐hydroxy‐5,8,10‐pyrenetri‐sulphonate (PTS) and various systemic pesticides were studied using potato tuber tissue. The dye penetrated only 5% of the volume of living tissue while those pesticides which display an apoplastic pattern of transport in plants penetrated the entire tissue volume. The pesticides diffused freely out of the tissue when it was transferred to fresh medium. It is proposed that the term euapoplastic be used to describe chemicals that behave like the dye, and that the term pseudoapoplastic be used to describe chemicals that behave like atrazine, carbendazim, carboxin and diuron. 2,4‐D, which displays a symplastic transport pattern in the plant, was concentrated by the tissue and did not diffuse out freely. It appears that the property which allows a pesticide to be transported in the symplast is not its ability to penetrate the plasmalemma but rather its ability to be retained by the symplast after entry.