Shallow roots of different crops have greater water uptake rates per unit length than deep roots in well-watered soil

Müllers, Yannik; Postma, Johannes; Poorter, Hendrik; Kochs, Johannes; Pflugfelder, Daniel; Schurr, Ulrich; Dusschoten, Dagmar van

doi:10.1007/s11104-022-05650-8

Cited by 8 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…This is surprising, given that plant hydraulic conductance, transpiration, and CO 2 uptake, are regulated via stomatal opening and closure. The ABA-controlled regulation of stomata is, however, sensitive to soil hydraulic properties ( Carminati and Javaux, 2020 ; Abdalla et al., 2021 ), interacting with the root length and morphology ( Müllers et al., 2022a ). The mechanisms are still strongly debated ( Li et al., 2020 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant root plasticity during drought and recovery: What do we know and where to go?

Zheng

Bochmann²,

Liu³

et al. 2023

Front. Plant Sci.

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AimsDrought stress is one of the most limiting factors for agriculture and ecosystem productivity. Climate change exacerbates this threat by inducing increasingly intense and frequent drought events. Root plasticity during both drought and post-drought recovery is regarded as fundamental to understanding plant climate resilience and maximizing production. We mapped the different research areas and trends that focus on the role of roots in plant response to drought and rewatering and asked if important topics were overlooked.MethodsWe performed a comprehensive bibliometric analysis based on journal articles indexed in the Web of Science platform from 1900-2022. We evaluated a) research areas and temporal evolution of keyword frequencies, b) temporal evolution and scientific mapping of the outputs over time, c) trends in the research topics analysis, d) marked journals and citation analysis, and e) competitive countries and dominant institutions to understand the temporal trends of root plasticity during both drought and recovery in the past 120 years.ResultsPlant physiological factors, especially in the aboveground part (such as “photosynthesis”, “gas-exchange”, “abscisic-acid”) in model plants Arabidopsis, crops such as wheat and maize, and trees were found to be the most popular study areas; they were also combined with other abiotic factors such as salinity, nitrogen, and climate change, while dynamic root growth and root system architecture responses received less attention. Co-occurrence network analysis showed that three clusters were classified for the keywords including 1) photosynthesis response; 2) physiological traits tolerance (e.g. abscisic acid); 3) root hydraulic transport. Thematically, themes evolved from classical agricultural and ecological research via molecular physiology to root plasticity during drought and recovery. The most productive (number of publications) and cited countries and institutions were situated on drylands in the USA, China, and Australia. In the past decades, scientists approached the topic mostly from a soil-plant hydraulic perspective and strongly focused on aboveground physiological regulation, whereas the actual belowground processes seemed to have been the elephant in the room. There is a strong need for better investigation into root and rhizosphere traits during drought and recovery using novel root phenotyping methods and mathematical modeling.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant root plasticity during drought and recovery: What do we know and where to go?

Zheng

Bochmann²,

Liu³

et al. 2023

Front. Plant Sci.

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“…The alternating light levels were required to determine root water uptake profiles as described below. Müllers, Postma, Poorter, Kochs, et al (2022).…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Supporting Information: Appendix 1 also provides a more detailed discussion in Supporting Information: Figure 3 and the resulting conclusions. of harvested roots (Müllers, Postma, Poorter, Kochs, et al, 2022).…”

Section: Determining the Distribution Of Root Hydraulic Conductancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, several studies emphasize that plants often fail to do so and experience severe drought stress despite a relatively high water availability in deeper root zones (Gessler et al, 2022; Passioura, 1983; Prechsl et al, 2015; Rasmussen et al, 2020). A major reason is that the root conductance ( K root , see Table 1 for abbreviations) in deeper layers usually is low since roots are less abundant (Haberle & Svoboda, 2015; Kemper et al, 2020; Righes, 1980) and less conductive compared with shallow roots (Dara et al, 2015; Müllers, Postma, Poorter, Kochs, et al, 2022; Zarebanadkouki et al, 2013). Therefore, a more effective acquisition of deep water would require to locally increase root conductance over time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, as root hydraulic traits vary among individual roots and entire root systems (Ahmed et al, 2016(Ahmed et al, , 2018Clément et al, 2022;Müllers, Postma, Poorter, Kochs, et al, 2022;Rewald et al, 2012;Steudle & Peterson, 1998), local root length only partly determines a plant's ability to use deep water. Additionally, plants can increase the intrinsic root conductivity (conductance per length) by, for example, increasing the amount of active aquaporins (Johnson et al, 2014;McLean et al, 2011).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Deep‐water uptake under drought improved due to locally increased root conductivity in maize, but not in faba bean

Müllers

Postma

Poorter

et al. 2023

Plant Cell & Environment

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Moderate soil drying can cause a strong decrease in the soil‐root system conductance. The resulting impact on root water uptake depends on the spatial distribution of the altered conductance relatively to remaining soil water resources, which is largely unknown. Here, we analyzed the vertical distribution of conductance across root systems using a novel, noninvasive sensor technology on pot‐grown faba bean and maize plants. Withholding water for 4 days strongly enhanced the vertical gradient in soil water potential. Therefore, roots in upper and deeper soil layers were affected differently: In drier, upper layers, root conductance decreased by 66%–72%, causing an amplification of the drop in leaf water potential. In wetter, deeper layers, root conductance increased in maize but not in faba bean. The consequently facilitated deep‐water uptake in maize contributed up to 21% of total water uptake at the end of the measurement. Analysis of root length distributions with MRI indicated that the locally increased conductance was mainly caused by an increased intrinsic conductivity and not by additional root growth. Our findings show that plants can partly compensate for a reduced root conductance in upper, drier soil layers by locally increasing root conductivity in wetter layers, thereby improving deep‐water uptake.

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Future in the past: water uptake function of root systems

Knipfer

2022

Plant Soil

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Shallow roots of different crops have greater water uptake rates per unit length than deep roots in well-watered soil

Cited by 8 publications

References 46 publications

Plant root plasticity during drought and recovery: What do we know and where to go?

Plant root plasticity during drought and recovery: What do we know and where to go?

Deep‐water uptake under drought improved due to locally increased root conductivity in maize, but not in faba bean

Future in the past: water uptake function of root systems

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