Root mucilage enhances plant water use under combined soil and atmospheric drought.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Plants have evolved various root adaptive traits to enhance their ability to access soil water in stressful conditions. Although root mucilage has been suggested to facilitate root water uptake in drying soils, its impact during combined edaphic and atmospheric stress remains unknown. We hypothesized that mucilage decreases the saturated soil hydraulic conductivity, and consequently, a genotype with high mucilage production will exhibit lower maximum soil-plant hydraulic conductance and restrict transpiration at relatively low vapour pressure deficit (VPD). On the contrary, in drying soil, mucilage attenuates the gradients in matric potential at the root-soil interface and thus facilitates root water uptake, especially at high VPD.

Methods

We compared two

SUBMITTER: Akale A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12682819 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature