A tool to measure maize root system stiffness that enables a comprehensive understanding of plant mechanics and lodging
Date
2025-01-24
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Experimental Botany
Abstract
Plant mechanical failure, known as lodging, has detrimental impacts on the quality and quantity of maize yields. Failure can occur at stalks (stalk lodging) or at roots (root lodging). While previous research has focused on proxy measures for stalk stiffness, stalk strength, and root strength, there is a need to quantify the root system stiffness, which quantifies the force–displacement relationship. Here, we report a tool to quantify the root system stiffness of maize hybrids grown in different conditions. The results show that maize hybrids with a higher root system stiffness have a greater susceptibility to root lodging. This result is consistent with expected mechanical behavior, since higher root system stiffness values mean that the plant reaches the failure strength at lower displacements compared with a plant with lower root system stiffness. Collectively, this study describes the first tool to measure root system stiffness and enables a comprehensive understanding of the integrated plant mechanics and lodging.
Description
This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Experimental Botany following peer review. The version of record Ashley N Hostetler, Jonathan W Reneau, Joseph Cristiano, Teclemariam Weldekidan, Taran A Kermani, Therese T Kim, Erin E Sparks, A tool to measure maize root system stiffness that enables a comprehensive understanding of plant mechanics and lodging, Journal of Experimental Botany, Volume 76, Issue 4, 25 February 2025, Pages 950–960, https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erae465 is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erae465.
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Keywords
Anchorage, biomechanics, failure, maize, plant density, strength
Citation
Ashley N Hostetler, Jonathan W Reneau, Joseph Cristiano, Teclemariam Weldekidan, Taran A Kermani, Therese T Kim, Erin E Sparks, A tool to measure maize root system stiffness that enables a comprehensive understanding of plant mechanics and lodging, Journal of Experimental Botany, Volume 76, Issue 4, 25 February 2025, Pages 950–960, https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erae465