Paper record

Coupled X-ray imaging/diffraction reveals soil mechanics during analogous root growth.

Houx JL, Fletcher DM, Leonardi A, Williams KA, Walker N, Alvarez-Borges F, Dizaj EA, Murthy M, Smith R, Perera L, Aslani N, James A, Ahmed S, Roose T, Ruiz S.

npj biological physics and mechanics · 3 Jul 2025 · 10.1038/s44341-025-00021-7

Abstract

Soil compaction and escalating global drought increase soil strength and stiffness. It remains unclear which plant root biomechanical mechanisms/traits enable growth in these harsh conditions. Here, we combine synchrotron X-ray computed tomography with spatially resolved X-ray diffraction to characterize the biomechanics of a replica root-soil system. We map the strain field around the root tip analog, finding strong agreement with finite element simulations, thereby demonstrating a promising new in vivo measurement protocol.

Code and data availability

The paper's Data availability and Code availability statements both deposit the study's XCT/XRD imaging and diffraction data and the processing scripts in the University of Southampton Pure repository (DOI 10.5258/SOTON/D3309), which is an allowed URL. These are paper-specific, publicly declared assets directly reprodu

Codepublic

All scripts used to process the data can be found in the Pure repository: https://doi.org/10.5258/SOTON/D3309 .

Open resource ↗Pure · 10.5258/SOTON/D3309 · lines:209-251