Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute 1 article published in JoVE Environment Xylem Water Distribution in Woody Plants Visualized with a Cryo-scanning Electron Microscope Kenichi Yazaki1, Mayumi Y. Ogasa2, Katsushi Kuroda3, Yasuhiro Utsumi4, Peter Kitin5, Yuzou Sano6 1Department of Plant Ecology, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI), 2Kansai Research Center, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI), 3Department of Wood Properties and Processing, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI), 4Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, 5Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin, 6Research Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido University Observing the water distribution within the xylem provides significant information regarding water flow dynamics in woody plants. In this study, we demonstrate the practical approach to observe xylem water distribution in situ by using a cryostat and cryo-SEM, which eliminates artifactual changes in the water status during sample preparation.
