Changes in Transpiration induced by Ethyl Alcohol

Abstract

ETHYL alcohol was used as an auxiliary solvent in the preparation of auxin solutions for a series of transpiration experiments with plants in water culture when the roots were supplied with different auxins at varying concentrations. This method appears to be fairly common for auxin studies^1,2. After weighing, the auxin is dissolved in a small quantity of ethyl alcohol, and the resulting solution is diluted with water or a nutrient solution to obtain the concentration desired. The small amounts of alcohol used are usually considered to be harmless; nevertheless, it has been shown that ethyl alcohol may have modifying effects in auxin experiments even at low concentrations³. In an attempt to determine whether this is also the case in transpiration experiments, some experiments were carried out with nutrient solution to which had been added varying amounts of ethyl alcohol.