Rhizobox-Based Study of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Root System Architecture: Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Phenotyping and Screening to Complement Pre-Breeding

Abstract

As a reflection of its importance in many plant functions including nutrient and water uptake, anchoring and mechanical support, as an interface between the plant and soil, root system architecture study has become a topic on its own in many research areas. Therefore, current research undertakings are geared towards unraveling the development and architecture of root systems with the premises that it holds important information towards its exploitation in any research program, which aims to increase plant performance and economic yield. Nevertheless, there is a well-established fact that Root System Architecture (RSA) varies among different plant species, and the variation is well implicated, even within the same species, which is governed by the plant genotype and environment. Furthermore, the inherent difficulty of studying the root system (because of soil opacity) makes them recognized as being ‘the hidden half’ (Waisel et al., 2005), and because of the aforementioned factors, and/or probably some other unforeseen reasons, RSA has traditionally been neglected by researchers (for example plant breeders) in terms of integrating it as an important selection criterion in crop improvement program