SitS NSF- Field deployable sensing of the plant-soil interface: innovative bio-mimetic robots to understand dynamic soil processes and accelerate root and rhizosphere productivity

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Advances in agricultural practices have increased crop productivity in recent years but at the cost of soil quality. Soil and plant roots represent critical components in terrestrial carbon sequestration. The physics, chemistry and biology in this zone play central roles in global organic carbon, nitrogen and water cycles, and in a large part drive plant productivity. The opacity of soil coupled with the dynamic nature of the soil-root system have severely limited direct observations that would allow precise interventions as part of soil and plant management. New developments in subterranean exploration technology provide opportunities to probe the intricate relationship between roots and their surrounding soil environment. The investigators will integrate novel biologically inspired robotics; specifically soil endoscopes with fiber optics for soil and near root sensing and root growth and dynamics image capture, and novel soil sensing technology, for measurements of water and soil organic carbon dynamics. Developing this suite of novel tools will enable new means to interrogate the soil and specifically to address questions about roots, the “hidden half” of plants. This interdisciplinary effort has the potential to advance current belowground sensor systems across temporal and spatial scales to enable breeding efforts that directly affect food productivity and security. The project builds upon established programs that stimulate interest and engagement in science and engineering for girls, fosters public engagement in science and promotes training for early-career scientists.The lack of a suitable technology to measure the interplay of roots, water, and carbon directly at the root-soil interface has severely limited the ability to elucidate the temporal and spatial variation in bulk versus rhizosphere soil processes including root-soil hydraulic contact, rhizosphere metabolite profiling and soil organic carbon forms for inclusion in plant breeding and crop management programs. This work has the potential to significantly unravel several scientific questions including: 1) understanding of how plant roots influence the biophysical environment of the rhizosphere, and 2) quantifying how root exudates alter water in the rhizosphere and key processes in soil organic matter formation. The investigators will use two new methods to navigate and sense roots and soils with minimal disturbance. These advances will allow spatio-temporal measurements of the near-root and bulk soil environment, an important yet overlooked component of agricultural systems where the amount of carbon stored belowground often surpasses aboveground storage. Moreover, integration of above – and belowground environmental data in maize field trials will allow for a detailed understanding of the interrelationship of plant phenotypes to soil properties.This award was made through the "Signals in the Soil (SitS)" solicitation, a collaborative partnership between the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.