Investigating plant root effects on soil electrical conductivity: An integrated field monitoring and statistical modelling approach

Ni, Junjun; Cheng, Yifeng; Bordoloi, Sanandam; Bora, Himashree; Wang, Qin‐Hua; Ng, Charles‐Wang‐Wai; Garg, Ankit

doi:10.1002/esp.4533

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…(b) Electrical resistivity (ρ) vs. percentage volumetric water content (WC) from Figure 2 and Figure 5 of Ni et al. (2018). (c) Frequency averaged resistivity magnitude (|ρ|) as a function of percentage volumetric water content of Mary et al.…”

Section: Methods Targeting Electrical Resistivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensing the electrical properties of roots: A review

Ehosioke

Nguyen

Rao

et al. 2020

Vadose Zone Journal

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Thorough knowledge of root system functioning is essential to understand the feedback loops between plants, soil, and climate. In situ characterization of root systems is challenging due to the inaccessibility of roots and the complexity of root zone processes. Electrical methods have been proposed to overcome these difficulties. Electrical conduction and polarization occur in and around roots, but the mechanisms are not yet fully understood. We review the potential and limitations of low‐frequency electrical techniques for root zone investigation, discuss the mechanisms behind electrical conduction and polarization in the soil–root continuum, and address knowledge gaps. A range of electrical methods for root investigation is available. Reported methods using current injection in the plant stem to assess the extension of the root system lack robustness. Multi‐electrode measurements are increasingly used to quantify root zone processes through soil moisture changes. They often neglect the influence of root biomass on the electrical signal, probably because it is yet to be well understood. Recent research highlights the potential of frequency‐dependent impedance measurements. These methods target both surface and volumetric properties by activating and quantifying polarization mechanisms occurring at the root segment and cell scale at specific frequencies. The spectroscopic approach opens up a range of applications. Nevertheless, understanding electrical signatures at the field scale requires significant understanding of small‐scale polarization and conduction mechanisms. Improved mechanistic soil–root electrical models, validated with small‐scale electrical measurements on root systems, are necessary to make further progress in ramping up the precision and accuracy of multi‐electrode tomographic techniques for root zone investigation.

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Section: Methods Targeting Electrical Resistivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensing the electrical properties of roots: A review

Ehosioke

Nguyen

Rao

et al. 2020

Vadose Zone Journal

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“…The negative impact of excess Na + and/ or Cl − on plants is addressed as salt stress (Munns 2005 , also pose adverse influences on crop growth. Salt stress affects major processes of various plants, such as germination (Bybordi 2010; Fernández-Torquemada and Sánchez-Lizaso 2013; Khodarahmpour et al 2012), growth (White and Broadley 2001;Xu et al 2000), photosynthesis (Kalaji et al 2011;Saha et al 2010), nutrient imbalance (Hu and Schmidhalter 2005;Rogers et al 2003), and final yield (Garg et al 2015a;Ni et al 2018). Plant roots are restricted by the salinity stress, which can be attributed to the facts that (1) the existing salt reduces water absorption capacity of plants and further leads to reductions in growth and (2) the injured cells in the plant tissue resulted from excessive salt lead to reductions in growth.…”

Section: Effects Of Salts On Groundwater Evaporationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Groundwater Evaporation for Salt-Affected Soil Under Plastic Film-Covered Cultivation Condition: a Review

Gong

Xing

2020

J Soil Sci Plant Nutr

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Groundwater is a main type of natural resource, and groundwater evaporation is an important part of the cropland water cycle. Under recent years of poor land management, soil salinization is becoming a serious environmental issue, especially in the arid regions having strong evaporation and shallow groundwater table. Plastic mulching has therefore emerged gradually, becoming a globally applied agricultural practice for its benefits such as salt cumulation control, soil environment regulation, and crop yield improvement. However, knowledge of groundwater evaporation under plastic film-covered cultivation pattern remains vague in terms of action mechanism. This review critically discusses how plastic mulch, salt, and crop cultivation/plant by-products affect groundwater evaporation and further reveals their action mechanisms. For salt-affected cultivated soils, specifically, salt precipitation, crystallization, and capillary force are the non-negligible actions affecting water movement and evaporation. Besides, the physical and chemical effects of formed salt crust at plastic film holes cannot be ignored under plastic mulch underlying condition. Furthermore, the effect of changed canopy cover during growing period should be taken into consideration under crop cultivation underlying condition; meanwhile, the variation of water flow and evaporation induced by crop residues or direct straw return in farmland can be quantified through determining the amount of the hydrophilic oxygen-containing functional groups and the change of soil pore-size distribution. Based on the current research deficiency, future studies should focus on the groundwater contribution to crop, the diurnal variation of groundwater evaporation, the determination of suitable and ecological groundwater table, and the capillary rise models; and future interdisciplinary (e.g., physics and chemistry) research should be put into the interactive of salt and water in order to reveal the mechanisms of fresh and saliferous groundwater flow and evaporation; moreover, the issue on plastic pollution induced by plastic mulch should also be brought to the forefront. A clear understanding of groundwater evaporation under plastic film-covered cultivation on salt-affected soil benefits environmental protection in the saline regions.

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“…However, there was a quantitative relationship among the three factors. According to the statistical modelling theory proposed by scholars when studying the effect of plant roots on soil conductivity to determine the magnitude of soil conductivity [22], the following relational model was derived:…”

Section: The Relationship Between the Conductivity Of Clay With Adnbmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, finding the trends and the mechanisms of soil conductivity changes under different temperature conditions is a simple, effective and low-cost way to study the effect of soil amendment on ecological restoration and improve the performance of a soil amendment. Ni et al integrated a field monitoring and computational modelling approach, then found the effects of soil water content and temperature on electrical conductivity in vegetated soils and built a model that could predict nonlinear relationships between electrical conductivity and soil temperature and water content [22]. Our model was based on the foundation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Aqua-Dispersing Nano-Binder on Clay Conductivity at Different Temperatures

Zhou

Huang

et al. 2019

Sustainability

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Soil nutrients are the basis of ecological remediation. Soil amendments can form a reticular membrane structure on the soil surface to increase nutrient storage and alleviate nutrient imbalances, and are affected by the environmental temperature. At present, the qualitative evaluation of the effect of soil amendment is mainly based on vegetative growth. However, with the increasing use of soil amendments, how to conveniently and quantitatively evaluate the impact of soil amendments on ecological restoration under different temperature conditions from the perspective of soil urgently needs to be solved. Therefore, a new soil amendment named aqua-dispersing nano-binder (ADNB) and silty clay that is commonly used for ecological restoration in South China were used as research subjects, and the important soil nutrient storage capacity—soil conductivity index—was used as the starting point to find solutions to the above problems. We independently developed a multifunctional instrument to measure the soil amendment concentration. Clay conductivity measurements were used by adding different concentrations of ADNB within the range of 0 to 50 °C, and the mechanism by which temperature and ADNB affect the conductivity of clay was revealed. In addition, the quantitative relationship between the clay conductivity, ambient temperature and concentration of ADNB was elucidated. According to the growth conditions of melinis minutiflora and pigeon pea under different concentrations of ADNB, the optimal ADNB concentration needed to improve ecological restoration was obtained, which provided a new way to evaluate the effects of the large-scale use of soil modifiers on ecological restoration.

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Investigating plant root effects on soil electrical conductivity: An integrated field monitoring and statistical modelling approach

Cited by 12 publications

References 61 publications

Sensing the electrical properties of roots: A review

Sensing the electrical properties of roots: A review

Groundwater Evaporation for Salt-Affected Soil Under Plastic Film-Covered Cultivation Condition: a Review

Effects of Aqua-Dispersing Nano-Binder on Clay Conductivity at Different Temperatures

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