Abstract
Aims
Determine if the root system of Lolium perenne L. (L perenne) is a continuous distribution of diameters, or a collection of discrete diameters classes.
Methods
Plants from tillers of five clones were grown in a local soil amended with lime. Roots were excavated after they were grown in soil for 54 days, washed and imaged with both a commercial scanner (94 px mm−1) and a high resolution, locally built, imager (204 px mm−1). Images were converted to diameter class length data with WinRhizo.
Results
Scanned images did not have enough resolution to accurately measure fine roots diameters (<0.09 mm diam.). Therefore the high resolution images were used. The diameter class length distributions (DCLD) of these images demonstrated diameter class clusters (meso diameter classes) which could be modeled with a non-linear Gaussian (normal) curve model. Recreating the whole root system from a compilation of the DCLD, regenerated from the three parameters of each of the Gaussian curves for the root system, produced a distribution visually identical to the original whole root system curve.
Conclusions
L perenne root systems are a collection of meso diameter classes easily described by non-linear Gaussian models. The data set of the parameters from these models is much smaller than a WinRhizo data set, and can reconstruct the original whole system DCLD.
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Acknowledgements
My sincere thanks to Tom Kinraide for his insistence that I become familiar with nonlinear regression techniques.
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Responsible Editor: Alain Pierret.
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Zobel, R.W. Lolium perenne L. root systems are a collection of Gaussian curve shaped meso diameter class length distributions. Plant Soil 363, 113–121 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-012-1298-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-012-1298-0