Effects of Soil Structure on the Growth of Rice Roots

Abstract

Soil pore structure has a large impact on plant root architecture, but it is difficult to study due to secondary impacts from bulk density, carbon, nutrients, and other properties. Here, we isolated soil pore structure by forming controlled soil structures in repacked columns. To generate a non-structured treatment, sieved soil was packed to 1.3 g cm⁻³ bulk density. A structured treatment used the same sieved soil that was first compacted, then broken apart into artificial soil aggregates and packed to the same bulk density. Rice seedlings had greater total root length (27%), fine root length and number, root surface area (22%), and tips number (41%), but 20% less root dry mass, in non-structured compared to structured soil. This study isolated how soil structure affects the growth and architecture of rice roots for soils at the same bulk density.