Roots get an MRI

A team of scientists led by Texas A&M AgriLife is using MRI to examine crop roots to develop crops with stronger and deeper root systems.

The team from Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Harvard Medical School, ABQMR Inc. and Soil Health Institute developed a novel MRI-based root phenotyping system to nondestructively acquire high-resolution images of plant roots growing in soil and established the Texas A&M Roots Lab to further develop this technology as a new tool for assessing crop root traits.

The “Field-Deployable Magnetic Resonance Imaging Rhizotron for Modeling and Enhancing Root Growth and Biogeochemical Function” is a part of the Rhizosphere Observations Optimizing Terrestrial Sequestration, ROOTS, program funded through U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy program.

Nithya Rajan, PhD, AgriLife Research crop physiologist/agroecologist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Bryan-College Station, is leading this multidisciplinary project team.

“We are applying this technology to see if we can sense roots growing in agricultural soils and characterize them,” she said. “To date, imaging roots in soil has been challenging because the soil is complex, with solids, moisture and roots. We just want to image the roots.”

The project was initially funded for three years with a $4.6 million grant. The second phase of funding was approved this year at $4.4 million.

“In the first phase, we developed the proof of concept and initial prototypes, and in the second phase we developed a low-field MRI rhizotron for high throughput imaging and applications in a wide variety of crops in addition to energy sorghum,” Rajan said.

Brock Weers, PhD, and Will Wheeler, PhD, are support scientists working with the AgriLife Research team. Also on the team with AgriLife Research are Bill Rooney, PhD, sorghum breeder and Borlaug-Monsanto Chair for Plant Breeding and International Crop Improvement in the department of soil and crop sciences, and John Mullet, PhD, biochemist and Perry L. Adkisson Chair in Agricultural Biology in the department of biochemistry and biophysics.

Rooney and Mullet are using the MRI system to advance bioenergy sorghum genetics. Brock Weers, PhD, and Will Wheeler, PhD, are support scientists working with the AgriLife Research team.

“We need to develop crop root systems that store more carbon in soil,” Mullet said. “In addition, deeper root systems can take up more water from soil profiles, increasing crop drought resilience.”

Using MRI allows researchers to gather root images without damaging plants, unlike traditional methods such as trenching, soil coring and root excavation, Rajan said.

More information is available on the AgriLife Today website.

Texas A&M AgriLife photo by Laura McKenzie.