Title : Does root structure affect phosphorous uptake in Brassica napus?
Abstract:
Phosphorous is a vital element for plant growth and is a structural component of phospholipid cell membranes, nucleic acids, ATP etc. However it can be relatively difficult for plants to access the phosphorous they need from soil. This is due to phosphorous generally having low bioavailability in soils as it is easily fixed or adsorbed by other elements in the soil, for example it can be fixed by aluminium or iron in acidic soils or by lime in calcareous soils.
This often leads to farmers regularly applying fertilisers high in phosphorous to crops in order to increase available phosphorous. Phosphorous fertilisers are often expensive, obtained mainly from finites sources and have negative environmental impacts including eutrophication and contamination from other elements in the fertiliser. Due to this plants need to be made better at absorbing phosphorous already in soils.
Plants acquire nutrients from the soil through their roots, therefore if phosphorous uptake is to be made more efficient then the roots require extensive study. This study focuses on how root structure affects the uptake of phosphorous, focussing on Brassica napus. This study investigates if the physiological properties of roots, particularly root architecture and anatomy, differs between varieties with high and low phosphorous levels in their leaves.
The root architecture is being investigated using the pouch and wick phenotyping method to analyse 2D root structure. The 2D structure can then be analysed with the Root Nav image analysis software to identify a variety of traits which may be linked to the phosphorous levels within the plants (e.g. root lengths, number of laterals etc).
Sectioning of the roots and subsequent confocal microscope imaging is being used to look at the anatomical structure of the roots to investigate if the internal cellular arrangement of the roots is different between these lines. This is particularly interesting as the internal structure of Brassica roots has not been investigated in detail.
