Project Details
Projekt
Characterization of radicle root hair functions adding to a vigorous seedling establishment under adverse nutrient and water seedbed conditions
Applicant
Professor Dr. Gerd Patrick Bienert
Subject Area
Plant Cultivation, Plant Nutrition, Agricultural Technology
Term
since 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 403625794
Germination constitutes a very critical growth phase during crop development. A vigorous seedling establishment in this stage will decide over the overall plant performance, stress resistance and yield formation. A vigorous seedling establishment highly depends on a sophisticated not yet understood rhizosphere organization ensuring water and nutrient uptake as well as soil anchorage. Shortly after the embryonic root penetrates the coleorhiza and is entering the soil environment, the radicle is characteristically coated in a bloomy manner by numerous root hairs. Surprisingly, their biological role is yet scarcely understood. We hypothesize that radicle root hairs represent major drivers for water and nutrient uptake, particularly under adverse nutrient and water seedbed conditions, and trigger seedling-establishment-efficiency in suboptimal agricultural sites.Thus, the main goal of this PP2089 project is to identify and characterize the role of maize root hair properties in rhizosphere organizational processes, ensuring maize seedling establishment under single or combined water and/or nutrient [B & P] deficit and as a function of soil texture and compaction, in line with the overall PP2089 objectives.During germination, very defined interlinked feedback loops between nutrient and water availability, exudation processes, microbes and soil properties exist. Capturing this dynamic plasticity in its full “entirety” is experimentally feasible when focusing on radicles. To achieve our aims, growth rates, shoot biomass increase, micro- and macronutrient uptake, apoplastic barrier traits, root system architecture development and root hair characteristics will be quantified in maize wild type and mutant plants lacking proper root hairs. Data will be collected in soil column time-series experiments exploiting plants germinating under optimal or adverse water and/or B or P-limiting seedbed conditions also differing in their texture and compaction.Complementary, water and nutrient transporter gene expression and protein localization patterns will be determined to unravel the mutual impact of water uptake on nutrient uptake and vice versa, also at the molecular level. RNA-sequencing of root hair versus radicle transcriptomes are targeted to identify signalling pathways as well as gene expression patterns and networks driving, soil property-dependent, the responses to water and/or P availability, advancing our understanding on rhizosphere processes which are allowing plants to adapt to adverse seedbed conditions.XR-CT scanning will visually revoke the impact of root hairs on 3D root growth development and appearance to complete the picture.In summary, this project will unravel the causative interplay between molecular and morphological root hair traits, soil characteristics and water and nutrient availability in the rhizosphere and therewith the role of root hairs in ensuring the hydromineral nutrition of seedlings during germination in adverse seedbeds.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
