DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM FOR DIAGNOSING CROP ROOT GROWTH USING FRACTAL ANALYSIS.

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The objectives of this research are as follows ; 1. Quantify and evaluate the morphology of crop roots through fractal analysis. 2. Develop a simple method applicable to the diagnosis of root growth and functions. 3. Simulate and estimate the distribution of whole root system in soil from the limited sample data. The final goal of the research is to develop the computer aided system for evaluating and simulating growth and function of root systems grown in soil with minimum labor and time spend for sample acquisition. 1. The major parameters affecting to fractal dimension of root systems of legume seedlings were root length, number of root tip and topology. Topology of the system can be quantified by fractal dimension with the measured data of root length and root tip number. 2. The influence magnitude of each major parameter to fractal dimension of root systems was altered by growth rate of the root. 3. The fractal dimension of root samples taken from different soil depth was varied considerably, and the distributiion profile of fractal dimension was characteristically different among rice varieties. The length and weight density of roots collected from soil cores were closely correlated with fractal dimension. These results suggest that fractal dimension is a simple and useful index for evaluating and diagnosing the root architecture and growth as well as for estimating and simulating root distribution in the field soil.