Transparent soil allows detailed study of roots

A team of researchers from the James Hutton Institute and the University of Abertay Dundee have developed a see-through soil which will enable them to study roots in detail.

Addressing global issues such as food security, disease transmission and climate change presents researchers with a variety of challenges, including the study of the underground world of plant roots; called the rhizosphere. The creation of the new see-through soil marks a milestone in the study of the rhizosphere and will have applications in many different areas of research.

Lionel Dupuy, a theoretical biologist in the Ecological Sciences group at the James Hutton Institute, said: "With this new technique, scientists now have a way to observe soil processes, live and in situ. This is exciting because there are so many things to discover in soil and we don't know yet what they are."

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