Figure 5.

Changes in the size of stomatal apertures on the abaxial epidermal strips of intact wild type (WT; white columns) and ethylene-insensitive Never ripe (Nr; black columns) tomato plants treated foliar using a squirrel-hair brush with 5 μg mL⁻¹ of flagellin (flg22) in the late afternoon under light (at 5:00 p.m.) (A) or at night under darkness (at 9:00 p.m.; (B). Measurements were carried out one hour after treatments (at 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.). Epidermal peels were prepared immediately from the whole leaves from the different leaf levels and genotypes; then, microscopic photos were taken rapidly and the stomatal pore size was determined digitally (C). Means ± SE, n = 3. Means were analysed by two-way ANOVA; significant differences among the data were analysed by Duncan’s test. Mean values significantly different at p < 0.05 are indicated by different letters, upper case letters indicate the effects of the treatment at the same time of day and lower case letters indicate the effects of daytime under the same treatment. (Control, treatment with sterile distilled water; Control+1, untreated distal leaf level to the control; flg22, treatment with 5 μg mL⁻¹ of flagellin dissolved in sterile distilled water; flg22+1, untreated distal leaf level to the flg22-treated one).