Plant water uptake at the single plant scale: experiment vs. model

This study tested the hypotheses that the soil is the main resistance to the extraction of water by the plant roots, owing to a combination of low root length density (unit length of root per unit volume of soil), low soil water diffusivity at low soil water content. To test this hypothesis wheat plants were grown in undisturbed and repacked clay-loam and repacked sand. The plants were kept in a controlled environment where they were challenged with a range of evaporative demands, first rising and then falling, and the transpiration rate, E, and the null measurement of the xylem water potential, B, were measured non-destructively and continuously. The experimental measurements were compared to the output of a mathematical model that solves the radial diffusion equation for the flow of water to a single plant root, assumed to represent all roots. For the repacked clay-loam and the repacked sand, the model could match the data during the rising phase of E, if it was assumed that only 10% of the roots were taking up water and that the soil water diffusivity was constant and low. However it could not match the data during the falling phase of E, unless it was assumed that there had been a significant rise in the hydraulic resistance of the plant, or perhaps more likely, that an additional, yet constant, interfacial resistance had developed when E was high and B was rapidly increasing. That the slope of B(E) during the falling phase of E, for the repacked clay-loam and the repacked sand, was essentially constant suggests that the radial flow of water through the soil generated only minor gradients in soil suction and therefore that neither low soil water diffusivity nor low root length density was inhibiting the extraction of water from the soil by the plant roots. For the undisturbed clay-loam soil, the radial-flow model did not agree with the experimental data even when various combinations of soil water diffusivity and root length density were tried. This disagreement may have been due to a skewed distribution of roots in the cores, for few if any roots were seen at the base of any core. However, even when the roots were assumed to be confined to the top 50 or 75% of the total soil volume the model and experimental data did not agree. This work provides evidence that the flow of water to the plant roots, as encapsulated in the radial-flow model, is not inducing large gradients in suction close to the plant roots growing in the three soil types used in the experiments reported here. The clear disagreement between the experimental data and the model suggests that something else is generating the large hydraulic resistances evident between the soil and the leaves of the plants.