Root Study: Why Is It behind Other Plant Studies?

Abstract

Until the 1980s, root studies were typically conducted in nutrient solution, because of the technical difficulties of studying roots in their natural environment, soil. Recent innovations and the realization that there are gaps between the expected and actual performance of plant root systems have emphasized the need for more realistic solutions. This review analyzes the study of plant roots in view of developments in soil science, microbiology, botany and plant physiology, and recently the introduction of molecular biology and computerized imaging.

Differences in size and architecture of the potato cultivars root system and their tolerance to drought stress

“…Measurements of root system parameters require difficult and time-consuming labour (Smith et al 1994, Tracy et al 2011, Silberbush 2013, Khan et al 2016. Therefore, most studies examine only a small part of the total plant material and comprehensive studies await improved methods for phenotyping.…”

Root phenotypic characterization of lesquerella genetic resources

“…For example germplasm sets in chickpea (Jha et al, 2014;Kashiwagi et al, 2005), pea (McPhee, 2005), radish (Jatoi et al, 2011), barley (Meskine et al, 2006), rice (Gowda et al, 2011) and soybean (Manavalan et al, 2010) have been analyzed for root trait architecture and root growth under different conditions. It is recognized that screening of plant roots in nonstandard growth conditions have inherent limitations (Silberbush, 2013), but valuable information has been obtained in ex situ screening. Researchers are also bringing forward new technologies and screening protocols that allow looking at these 'hidden' plant organs in different ways, such as utilizing 3D structural tomography, radar and functional imaging technologies (Fiorani and Schurr, 2013; Thompson et al, 2013;Yang et al, 2013).…”

Morfologia i anatomia systemu korzeniowego nowych odmian ziemniaka. Część I. Morfologia systemu korzeniowego

“…Root studies, which were far behind the other plant sciences, changed during the second half of the 20 th century, but have accelerated since that time (Tracy et al, 2011;De Smet et al, 2012). It was not only the technological innovations that enabled this trend but mainly the notion that there is a missing gap in plant studies, that is incomplete without this link (Silberbush, 2013).…”