Abstract
A new split-root system was used to simulate non-uniform salt, drought or nutrient deficiency stress in the root zone, in which the root system was divided into two or more equal portions. Here, we established a split-root system by grafting of cotton seedlings. In contrast to the conventional split-root, the main roots of the new system remained intact, which provided a better system for studying cotton response to unequal treatment in the root zone. The new system was suitable for plant growth in nutrient solution and the two root systems can fully be immerged in the nutrient solution.
Keywords: Cotton, Split-root system, Graft, Unequal treatment, Scion, Stock
Background
The split-root system has been used to study plant responses to heterogeneous soil conditions such as partial root drying, unequal salt distribution, and heterogeneous nutrient distribution. The conventional split-root system in cotton and other plants are established by dividing the lateral roots into two equal parts after cutting of the main root of a seedling (Bazihizina et al., 2009; Dong et al., 2010). The new system was suitable for plant growth in nutrient solution and for a girdling experiment because there was sufficient distance between the root and position of the graft (Kong et al., 2012 and 2016).
Materials and Reagents
Equipment
Procedure
Data analysis
The survival rate of grafted seedlings was more than 95% and most of them had two uniform root systems (kong et al., 2012) (Figure 4). A successfully grafted cotton seedling has two uniform root systems. At this stage, the seedling which was used as scion becomes indistinguishable from the stock. Figure 4. Grafted cotton. The xylem (1) and phloem (2) of the grafted site.
Notes
Uniformly germinated seeds and seedling were selected to make sure the grated seedlings had two uniform split-root systems.
Recipes
Note: The nutrient solutions used in this experiment needn’t be sterilized. It can be made in advance and stored at 4 °C for one month.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 31371573 and 31501249), the special fund for Taishan Scholars (Nos. Tspd20150213 and tshw20110218), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2015QZ03), the Seed Project of Shandong Province (2014-cotton), the Agricultural Scientific and Technological Innovation Project (CXGC2016C04) and Youth Scientific Research Foundation (Grant No. 2014QNZ01) of Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
References
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