Abstract
Purpose
Electrical capacitance (EC) is widely used to measure root traits especially in hydroponic and wet soil environments, but its feasibility was recently questioned due to the possible leakage of electrical current before entering the root system. To investigate whether the current can travel deeper in woody roots, EC was evaluated in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) grown under different soil moisture conditions (two rounds of pot experiments, one PVC tube experiment and one field experiment).
Methods
In these experiments, electrical capacitance of the root (ECroot) was recorded before and after severing roots, and immediately afterward, the roots were collected to measure root dry weight, surface area, length, and volume.
Results
The results showed that ECroot was significantly reduced after root cutting especially under dry conditions in the three experiments. The PVC tube experiment further demonstrated that root cutting did not significantly affect the changes in ECroot measured at different soil layers under dry conditions possibly suggesting that the current could flow into the deep roots under these conditions. Moreover, incorporating root tissue density and soil moisture into the prediction model can improve the predictive accuracy of ECroot. In contrast, ECroot was less affected by root cutting under wet soil conditions, indicating that it may not directly measure roots under these conditions.
Conclusions
ECroot shows the potential to directly quantify root traits under dry conditions rather than wet conditions.
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Abbreviations
- EC:
-
Electrical capacitance
- ECroot :
-
Electrical capacitance of the root
- ECsoil :
-
Electrical capacitance of the soil
- RTD:
-
Root tissue density
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Hanbing Jiang, Shiming Duan, Baoru Li, Na Liu and Xing Guo for helping with field sampling and providing assistance in processing root samples. This study was funded by the International Cooperation Project of MOST (2017YFE0130500) and supported by the State Key Laboratory of North China Crop Improvement and Regulation (NCCIR2020KF-8) and Key Research & Development Program of Hebei Province (20326404D).
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Gu, H., Liu, L., Butnor, J.R. et al. Electrical capacitance estimates crop root traits best under dry conditions—a case study in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.). Plant Soil 467, 549–567 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-021-05094-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-021-05094-6