Maize plant performance depending on root-soil contact

Description: We investigate the importance of root-soil contact for nutrient uptake and plant performance and for the establishment and composition of the bacterial community in and on the root. We manipulated root-soil contact by growing wildtype maize plants (WT) for four weeks in the presence (WT bulk) or absence of soil macropores (WT pore) in the green house. The same treatments were applied to a maize mutant (rth3/Mut), which is deficient in root hair elongation and thus results in even lower root-soil contact, when grown in soil with pores (rth3/Mut pore). We measured plant parameters like plant height, dry shoot and root weight, and plant nutrient concentrations. We used fluorescent microscopy to detect bacteria on the root surface, 16S rRNA gene-based amplicon sequencing to analyse the bacterial community composition, and qPCR to assess the abundance of bacteria and archaea as well as bacterial nitrifiers and denitrifiers.

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