Abstract
Reducing the ecological costs of conventional agriculture, including fertilization and irrigation, is a major objective of research in plant science. High-throughput phenotyping of root traits as predictors of crop performance under limited water and nutrient availability are now available but these still often ignore root hairs (RHs), although these cells provide a major contribution to plant nutrient, water uptake and interactions with soil microbes. We developed a non-destructive procedure (based on a Rhizobox-type device) to phenotype wheat root hair development in whole root systems. We used this system to phenotype the architectural traits of a landrace wheat variety Triticum turgidum ssp. durum cv. Oued Zenati and an ancestral wheat variety T. t. L. spp. dicoccum cv. Escandia and we performed an integrative analysis of the plasticity of root and root hair traits under low phosphorus availability.