Root-Soil Interactions

Dear Colleagues,

There has been a resurgence of interest in the ‘Hidden Half’ of plants and crops, namely the roots. Encouragingly, there is a keen appreciation of the need for root studies to be in a realistic environment, at least soil columns and ideally in the field. Whilst root proliferation and function have genetic basis, accounting for variability between species and within species, there is an overriding impact of the soil and its properties including chemistry, physical structure and strength, water content and organic matter and microbial content. New methodologies are being developed to enable high throughput screening with improved resolution, in some cases using sampling, or proxy measurements for activity or extremely high resolution by magnetic resonance scanning or X-ray computer tomography albeit at lower throughput. This Special Issue aims to include key breakthrough in any of these areas of interactions of plant roots with the soil or novel techniques for analysis. The outputs of studies in either the laboratory or the field environments are welcome.  

Dr. William Whalley
Dr. Malcolm Hawkesford
Guest Editors