Water availability is a major limiting factor for crop production, making drought adaptation and its many component traits a desirable attribute of plant cultivars. Previous studies in cereal crops indicate that root traits expressed at early plant developmental stages, such as seminal root angle and root number, are associated with water extraction at different depths. Here, we conducted the f...

The effect of Heterodera avenae infestation on early seminal and lateral root growth was examined in four oat genotypes differing in tolerance to H. avenae. Recently emerged seminal roots were inoculated with a range of H. avenae larval densities, then transferred a hydroponic system to remove the effect of later nematode penetration on root development. Intolerance to H. avenae was assessed in...

Seminal roots of maize are pivotal for early seedling establishment. The maize mutant rootless concerning crown and seminal roots (rtcs) is defective in seminal root initiation during embryogenesis. In this study, the transcriptomes of wild-type and rtcs embryos were analyzed by RNA-Seq based on histological results at three stages of seminal root primordia formation. Hierarchical clustering hi...

In rice (Oryza sativa) seedlings, continuous white-light irradiation inhibited the growth of seminal roots but promoted the growth of crown roots. In this study, we examined the mechanisms of photoinhibition of seminal root growth. Photoinhibition occurred in the absence of nitrogen but increased with increasing nitrogen concentrations. In the presence of nitrogen, photoinhibition was correlate...

Geneticists and breeders are positioned to breed plants with root traits that improve productivity under drought. However, a better understanding of root functional traits and how traits are related to whole plant strategies to increase crop productivity under different drought conditions is needed. Root traits associated with maintaining plant productivity under drought include small fine root...

Drought is a major abiotic stress factor limiting maize production, and elucidating the genetic control of root system architecture and plasticity to water-deficit stress is a crucial problem to improve drought adaptability. In this study, 13 root and shoot traits and genetic plasticity were evaluated in a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population under well-watered (WW) and water stress (WS) co...

Barley and pea plants were grown under several regimens of different compositions of soil atmosphere, the O(2) concentration varying from 0 to 21% and the CO(2) concentration from 0 to 8%. In absence of CO(2), the effect of O(2) on root length in barley was characterized by equal root lengths within the range of 21 to 7% O(2) and a steep decline between 7 and 0%. In peas, while showing the same...

to investigate the root anatomy and hydraulic conductivity of wheat cultivars, including shiraz, bahar, pishtaz, sistan, and yavaros, a series of controlled environment (growth chamber) experiments were hydroponically conducted at university college of dublin (ucd), ireland in 2010. bahar, pishtaz and sistan cultivars were employed as tolerant to drought and shiraz and yavaros as sensitive. twe...

Water yam (Dioscorea alata) is a staple crop for many of the poorest in the tropics. Yam tuber response to fertiliser application has been reported to be erratic. We hypothesised that this variable response could be due to the development of a suboptimal root system that would not allow the plant to capture the nutrients added with the fertiliser. To verify this hypothesis we studied during two...