An old comment in another stub pointed to this paper and I was really surprised by the fact that we seemingly don't have a clear understanding of something as basic as how plants get their water (especially since my high school and non-botany undergraduate education suggested that this was a long-solved problem.)
I'd really love to learn more about where the state of the art is today.
FWIW, I asked Google Gemini to summarize the article for me to see if I was reading it correctly and this is what it gave me:
This paper challenges the cohesion-tension theory (C-T), which states that water rises in plants through tension created by transpiration. The author argues that several recent studies have shown that the C-T theory is not entirely accurate.
New techniques, such as pressure probes and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, have allowed scientists to measure water movement in plants more accurately. These studies have shown that water can move uphill against gravity through mechanisms other than tension, such as osmosis and capillary action.
The author also criticizes the Scholander bomb, a tool traditionally used to measure water tension in plants. The author argues that this tool is not very accurate and does not provide reliable data.
Overall, the paper suggests that the C-T theory is incomplete and that there are other mechanisms at play in the movement of water in plants.
by Tyler_Zoro