A deeper insight on water use in plants thanks to portable MRI – DISRUPTOR

Terrestrial ecosystems play a key role in carbon sequestration. To trap carbon, plants need water. To do so, plants absorb water through their roots, which is then transported through the xylem to the leaves where sugars are synthesized from carbon dioxide during the photosynthesis. A tight coupling therefore emerges between water transport and carbon sequestration. To non-invasively study water-linked processes, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the gold standards. However, the MRI needs to be transported to be close to the plant. Our recent work demonstrated the interest and the performance of such transportable MRI sensor.
The aim of this project is to characterize plant water use and transfer in their natural environment thanks to this transportable MRI sensor. In a first task focusing on root systems, we will study water uptake in the soil and rhizosphere, with single or mixed species in rhizotrons, submitted to water deficit episodes. In a second workpackage, with measurements on aerial parts, we will phenotype trees to understand the differences between species in their water use. We will start with orchard trees before moving to forest ones. To support these measurements, a third workpackage will be dedicated to developments around the sensor; this includes making the sensor autonomous to make measurements in forest or developing artificial intelligence-based processing methods.
These results will give a deeper insight into water relations of plants, in interaction with soil and help in the understanding of ecophysiological processes occurring during extreme events.