New Method for Measurement of Plant Roots Specific Surface

To provide enough space to carry all surface charges responsible for high cation exchange capacity of plant roots, large area of the root specific surface is necessary, however all experimental methods used up to date give too small surface area values. In this paper, we propose to measure the plant roots surface area using water vapor adsorption isotherm. This method gives roots specific surface areas compatible to CEC. Methodical aspects of the measurements are described along with theoretical background for calculating specific surface area on the example of roots of barley grown in nutrient solution.