Phenotypic traits measurement
Phenotypic traits were measured for each clone. Plants with apparently abnormal values were checked immediately and the values corrected whenever necessary. To investigate the influence of Cd on photosynthesis, we measured net photosynthetic rate (A) in mornings between 8-11 am on sunny days, using a Li-6800 portable InfraRed Gas Analyser (IRGA). Chlorophyll content was extracted using the acetone method (Su et al., 2010) and measured using a spectrophotometer. Actual quantum efficiency of PSⅡ (YⅡ) shows the actual light energy conversion efficiency, and maximum quantum efficiency of PSⅡ (Fv/Fm) shows the maximum efficiency of PSII which converts absorbed light energy into chemical energy. We first placed the plants in darkness for 30 minutes as a pretreatment, and then measured YⅡ, Fv/Fm and electron transfer efficiency (ETR) in photosynthesis of healthy leaves using PAM-2500, DualPam-100. Ion leakage rate (ILR) as an indicator of cell membrane damage, was measured using conductivity meter (FiveEasy Plus™, Mettler Toledo, Switzerland). Leaf cadmium after high Cd treatment was separated by boiling with concentrated nitric acid, and measured using an ICP-MS,Thermo Fisher iCAP RQ,America. Multiple comparisons based on Turkey’s post-hoc HSD test was performed with ANOVA by the R packageagricolae (Mendiburu, 2019) to test the differences among groups in physiological traits due to Cd treatments.