Fig. 3.

Net photosynthetic rate (A), stomatal conductance (B) and intercellular CO₂ concentration (C_i) measured on the second youngest fully-expanded leaves of chickpea (Rupali) subjected to control or 30mM NaCl treatments either without infusion or with stem-infusion with water or 0.44M sucrose (Ψπ=–1.1MPa). Plants were grown in nutrient solution culture and NaCl treatments were imposed on 20-day-old plants for 97 d (20/15±2 °C day/night air temperatures). Infusion treatments were started at the time of flowering (42-day-old plants) and continued until maturity. The measurements were taken after 27 d of infusion between 10:00 and 14:00h at a photosynthetically active radiation of 1500 µmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹, a CO₂ concentration of 380 µmol mol⁻¹, leaf chamber temperature of 20 °C and 60–70% relative humidity. Values are means±SE (n=4). Two-way ANOVA was used to compare salt (S), infusion (I) and salt × infusion interaction (S × I) effects (***, significant with P<0.001; **, significant with P<0.01; *, significant with P<0.05; ^n.s., not significant with P>0.05). Significant differences (salt × infusion interaction at P=0.05) are indicated by different letters for each mean within each panel.