Plant Root Study with New Techniques by Emo_CutE_GiRl_ 2013/07/20 15:26
Plant roots, while being extremely important to the health of a plant, alsotend to be extremely difficult to study something about them being underground. So inorder to help make it possible to study root growth without having to turn to expensive and slow x-ray tools, one team of researchers has combined laser tracking with a transparent soil they previously developed.
The transparent soil combines transparent plastic particles soaked ina clear liquid to create a substrate that shares many of the properties ofsoil.
The laser tracking works in the following manner: an optical system spreads the beam from ablue-green laser into a thin sheet. The light passes straight through the transparent soil, but bounces off roots. By imaging perpendicular tothe light sheet plane, the researchers get a 2D image with one shot, and by moving the sample upand down, they can capture a series of 2D slices that can be used to build a 3D image of the roots.
Plant roots, while being extremely important to the health of a plant, alsotend to be extremely difficult to study something about them being underground. So inorder to help make it possible to study root growth without having to turn to expensive and slow x-ray tools, one team of researchers has combined laser tracking with a transparent soil they previously developed.
The transparent soil combines transparent plastic particles soaked ina clear liquid to create a substrate that shares many of the properties ofsoil.
The laser tracking works in the following manner: an optical system spreads the beam from ablue-green laser into a thin sheet. The light passes straight through the transparent soil, but bounces off roots. By imaging perpendicular tothe light sheet plane, the researchers get a 2D image with one shot, and by moving the sample upand down, they can capture a series of 2D slices that can be used to build a 3D image of the roots.
Emo_CutE_GiRl_ 2013/07/20 15:29
The team states that the laser used is not powerful enough to damage the roots. The technique was good enough to observe root hair and other important details, and can be used on most crop species.
Though growth behaviour in a pot is not always representative of behaviour in a field, this technique could still hold promise as a means of studying how roots grow in order to develop crop strains that can absorb water and nutrients well under various conditions.
By: "Roots laid bare" James Hutton Institute and the University of Abertay Dundee
The team states that the laser used is not powerful enough to damage the roots. The technique was good enough to observe root hair and other important details, and can be used on most crop species.
Though growth behaviour in a pot is not always representative of behaviour in a field, this technique could still hold promise as a means of studying how roots grow in order to develop crop strains that can absorb water and nutrients well under various conditions.
By: "Roots laid bare" James Hutton Institute and the University of Abertay Dundee
InternetLord 2013/07/20 17:17
Some roots are mixed with dry gin in my country and it cures some illness
Some roots are mixed with dry gin in my country and it cures some illness
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