I am interested in the contribution of root exudates in soil processes.
What is the recommended procedure to measure the magnitude of root exudates production (the quantity over a certain time)?
Is there also a method to collect and analyse the molecular / biochemical composition of these exudates?
To make the problem even harder, I am working with trees.
But still, I am interested to know how that works for smaller plants...
Dear Thomas Fungenzi,
Please have a look at these useful PDF attachments.
Good luck!
In the field of allelopathy they would develop a leachate collection system. The leachates can be used to irrigate test crops and also chemically analyzed for their characterization both qualitatively and quantitatively. Exudates after understood for their nature can be put into dose response experiments. One of very difficult areas would be understanding the single chemical responses may not reflect the complex mixtures in these systems. For your intension of looking at soil processes you may want to look at soil aggregation especially soil aggregate stability and see how the allelochemics could influence that critical process. When soil become persistently aggregated the result is greater conservancy of soil carbon which could be critical for water aire relations and the ability to positively sequester significant amounts of carbon and nitrogen. Hope some of these thoughts might be helpful in your research goals.
Dear Thomas Fungenzi,
Please have a look at these useful PDF attachments.
Good luck!
The root exudates in soil my be help to the microorganisms activity, so the most fungi and bacteria spores germinate and growth when the plant release the material from its root.
root leachate collection by overnight dipping is common practice. selection of thicker roots will give some alkaloids. feeder roots generally poor but their role can not negated in exudation process
Currently there are methods of studying the rhizosphere in controlled environments, such as rhizobox, it could also collect exudates through a hydrophonic culture system or in vitro cultures.
Once the exudates are collected, you can apply characterization techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance, thermogravimetry, gas chromatography with mass spectrometry, and in some cases you can determine both the nature and quantity of the different groups of organic molecules present.
As an example you can consult this paper.
Root exudate profiling of maize seedlings inoculated with Herbaspirillum seropedicaeand humic acids
Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture20141:23
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40538-014-0023-z
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