BACKGROUND Plants play a pivotal role in soil stabilization, with above-ground vegetation and roots combining to physically protect soil against erosion. It is possible that diverse plant communities boost root biomass, with knock-on positive effects for soil stability, but these relationships are yet to be disentangled. QUESTION We hypothesize that soil erosion rates fall with increased plan...

Low temperatures are crucial for the formation of the alpine treeline worldwide. Since soil temperature in the shade of tree canopies is lower than in open sites, it was assumed that self-shading may impair the trees' root growth performance. While experiments with tree saplings demonstrate root growth impairment at soil temperatures below 5-7°C, field studies exploring the soil temperature - r...

two glasshouse and field experiments were conducted to assess the effects of root system, water uptake, water use efficiency and early vigor on yield and drought tolerance of bread wheat in two successive farming seasons (2009-11). the experiments were conducted as randomized complete block design and two-year results analyzed as combined design. considerable genetic variation was observed amon...

Snow cover is projected to decline during the next century in many ecosystems that currently experience a seasonal snowpack. Because snow insulates soils from frigid winter air temperatures, soils are expected to become colder and experience more winter soil freeze-thaw cycles as snow cover continues to decline. Tree roots are adversely affected by snowpack reduction, but whether loss of snow w...

in order to evaluation of morphological selection criteria for salt tolerance screening in wheat (t. aestivum l.) a factorial experiment based on completely randomized design in 3 replications were conducted under greenhouse condition. salinity treatments involved 4 levels: s=1.3dsm-1 (control), 5, 10, 15 dsm-1 from calcium chloride and sodium chloride with 10:1 (na: ca ratio) and another facto...

to evaluate the sensitivity of different crops included some pulses to simulated metribuzin soil residues, an experiment was conducted in completely randomized design with factorial arrangement and four replications in research greenhouse of college of agriculture, ferdowsi university of mashhad. treatments included of 8 crops (chickpea, common bean, lentil, corn, wheat, barley, rape seed and s...

gerbera jamesoniiis of commercial significance and fifth most used cut flower in the world today. a pot experiment was performed to see the effect of co-inoculation of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (amf) i.e. (glomus mosseae andacaulospora laevis) with phosphate solubilizing bacteria pseudomonas fluorescensin the presence of different doses of superphosphate (low, medium, high) on growth establi...

Seasonal drought in tropical moist forest may be the cue for fine root death and turnover, and it may signal root growth deeper to access subsurface water and (or) nutrients. We examined these predictions by measuring fine root biomass ( 2 mm diam.) and the timing of root growth and disappearance in an old growth tropical moist forest on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Republic of Panama, in the f...

Drought is worldwide considered one of the most limiting factors of Theobroma cacao production, which can be intensified by global climate changes. In this study, we aimed to investigate the phenotypic correlation among morphological characteristics of cacao progenies submitted to irrigation and drought conditions and their partitions into direct and indirect effects. Path analysis with phenoty...

In a runoff irrigation system using levelled basins, the water uptake patterns of different plant species (Acacia saligna (Labill.) H. L. Wend. and Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench.) with contrasting root and shoot development were compared. Rainfall amounts during 1995 led to enough runoff water for realizing two cropping cycles. The amount of irrigation water was sufficient to fill the moisture-de...