Plant root systems - the key to soil resources

The IBG-3: Agrosphere Institute of Forschungszentrum Jülich is engaged with the sustainable use of the natural resources soil, water and atmosphere. The main interest of the group of Prof. Dr. Andrea Schnepf are plant-soil interactions and rhizosphere processes. Together with Prof. Dr. Guillaume Lobet, she develops the functional-structural model CPlantBox that allows to simulate 3D plant architectures and the uptake of important resources, water and nutrients, by plant roots from soils under different soil and climatic conditions.

This video outlines why plant roots are of key importance for water and nutrient cycling in general and for future agricultural systems in particular. It shows ways to observe and study root systems that grow in opaque soil, and features a workflow to analyse 3D images of root systems in a virtual reality environment that was developed in cooperation with the Jülich Supercomputing Centre. Finally, the video shows a 3D visualisation of simulated root growth and functioning in a virtual field setup. Such simulations may be used to study the efficiency of different root phenotypes and management measures to be assessed under future climate scenarios, thereby contributing to the UN sustainable development goals.