Relation to Root Growth

	Back to Home
Soil the Natural Medium for Plant Growth Soil in General Physical Properties of Soil Chemical Properties of Soil Soil Water Soil Atmosphere Methane Emissions from Lowland Rice Cultivation

Relation to Root Growth

	In Relation to Root Growth Although soil structure is a complex of several physical characteristics of soil, the growth pattern and extent of root system together with the attendant exudates and sloughed off debris of the root cortex contribute additional factors to the maintenance of soil structure, especially under intensive cultivation as in multiple cropping, mixed cropping and relay cropping. In other words, the root system of an actively growing plant or the remains of root system after harvest contribute to the organic matter status of soil and hence indirectly influence soil aggregation. In this context, leguminous crops are known to improve soil structure.
The growth of a plant depends not only on the capacity of soil to release nutrients, but equally on the capacity of the root system to absorb such nutrients in an efficient manner. An ideal root system is one which has the following characteristics: (1) capacity to spread quickly into a large volume of soil, (2) ability to spread spatially to hold the shoot in an erect position, (3) capacity to penetrate soil aggregates and soil layers of varied compaction and absorb water and nutrients from sub-soil zones, (4) capacity to solubilize and absorb maximum nutrients and moisture, especially under drought conditions, and (5) add large quantities of organic matter to different soil layers to improve physical properties of soil.
Varieties of one and the same crop show differences in their ability to add organic material through roots into the soil and thereby improve soil structure. For instance, in sub-soil depths, Kalyan Sona variety of wheat could add 170 kg/ha whereas Sharbati Sonora could add only 60 kg/ha. Root systems of different plants also differ in their abilities to absorb native soil nutrients and nutrients from inorganic fertilizers.

This as verified from experiments in which 32p tracer technique was used to test the feeding efficiency of roots of different varieties of wheat and rice. In wheat, relative per cent phosphorus feeding efficiency of Sonalika variety was 72.4 for soil phosphorus whereas it was 27.6 for fertilizer phosphorus. Similarly, the per cent feeding efficiency of soil phosphorus versus fertilizer phosphorus in NP 130 variety of rice were 76.3 and 23.7 respectively. Invariably, the feeding efficiencies of native nutrients were also uniformly better than nutrients from fertilizers, in several other varieties of wheat and rice.

	Back to Home
Soil pH Soil Structure Role of Organic Matter Synthetic Soil Conditioners Relation to Root Growth Evaluation Soil Structure

Home | Site map | Submit Article | Directory | Search