Current Research

• Effects of soil physical conditions on root growth. My interest is in the physical stresses experienced by roots growing in soil, with a particular focus on the effects of soil strength (mechanical impedance) and structure.
• New methods of measuring and screening root systems, including electrical capacitance.
• Border cell production by roots and their physical and biological roles in the rhizosphere.
• Bioengineering slopes with root reinforcement. We are studying how roots mechanically support soil slopes. We are trying to unravel how root length density and orientation, root branching, and root strength contribute to soil reinforcement.
• In-vivo imaging and analysis of root cell expansion. This work aims to develop powerful methods to analyze root growth responses to environmental perturbations. Confocal microscopy and computer vision techniques are being developed to track the growth of living root cells.

Recent Publications

• Stokes, A., Atger, C., Bengough, A.G., Fourcaud, T., Sidle, R.C. 2009. Desirable plant root traits for protecting natural and engineered slopes against landslides (Marschner Review). Plant and Soil (in press). (doi:10.1007/s11104-009-0159-y)
• Gregory, P.J., Bengough, A.G., Grinev, D., Schmidt, S., Thomas, W.T.B., Wojciechowski, T., Young, I.M. 2009. Root phenomics of crops – opportunities and challenges. Functional Plant Biology (in press).
• Barnett, C.M., Bengough, A.G. and McKenzie, B.M. 2009. Quantitative image analysis of earthworm-mediated soil displacement. Biology and Fertility of Soils (in press).
• Bengough, A.G., Hans, J., Bransby, M.F. and Valentine, T.A. 2009. PIV as a method for quantifying root cell growth and particle displacement in confocal images. Microscopy Research and Technique (in press).
• Hallett, P.D., Feeney, D., Bengough, A.G., Rillig, M.C., Scrimgeour, C.M. and Young, I.M. 2009. Disentangling the impact of AM fungi versus roots on soil structure and water transport. Plant and Soil 314, 183-196.
• Hargreaves, C.E., Gregory, P.J. and Bengough, A.G. 2009. Measuring root traits in barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. vulgare and ssp. spontaneum) seedlings using gel chambers, soil sacs and x-ray microtomography. Plant and Soil 316, 285-297.
• Hinsinger, P., Bengough, A.G., Vetterlein, D. and Young, I.M. 2009. Rhizosphere: biophysics, biogeochemistry and ecological relevance. Plant and Soil 321, 117-152.
• Hudacsek, P., Bransby, M.F., Hallett, P.D. and Bengough, A.G. 2009. Centrifuge modelling of climatic effects on clay embankments. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers (in press).
• Loades, K.W., Bengough, A.G., Bransby, M.F. and Hallett, P.D. 2009. Planting density influence on fibrous root reinforcement of soils. Ecological Engineering (in press).
• McKenzie, B.M., Bengough, A.G., Hallett, P.D., Thomas, W.T.B., Forster, B.P. and McNicol, J.W. 2009. Deep rooting and drought screening of cereal crops: A novel field-based method and its application. Field Crops Research 112, 165-171.
• Mickovski, S.B., Bransby, M.F., Bengough, A.G., Davies, M.C.R. and Hallett, P.D. 2009. The resistance of simple plant root systems to uplift loads. Canadian Geotechnical Journal (in press).
• Mickovski, S.B., Hallett, P.D., Bransby, M.F., Davies, M.C.R. and Bengough, A.G. 2009. Mechanical reinforcement of soil by willow roots: impacts of root properties and root failure mechanism. Soil Science Society of America Journal 73, 1276-1285.
• Roberts, T.J., McKenna, S.J., Du, C.J., Wuyts, N., Valentine, T.A. and Bengough, A.G. 2009. Estimating the motion of plant root cells from  in vivo confocal laser scanning microscopy images. Machine Vision and Applications (in press).
• Deeks, L.K., Bengough, A.G., Stutter, M.I., Young, I.M. and Zhang, X. 2008. Characterisation of flow paths and saturated conductivity in a soil block in relation to chloride breakthrough. Journal of Hydrology 348, 431-441.
• Wang, J., Zhang, X., Bengough, A.G. and Crawford, J.W. 2008. Performance evaluation of the cell-based algorithms for domain decomposition in flow simulation. International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat and Fluid Flow 18, 656-672.
• Mickovski, S.B., Bengough, A.G., Bransby, M.F., Davies, M.C.R., Hallett, P.D. and Sonnenberg, R. 2007. Material stiffness, branching pattern, and soil water matric potential affect the pullout resistance of model root systems. European Journal of Soil Science 58 , 1471-1481.
• Bengough, A.G., Bransby, M.F., Hans, J., McKenna, S.J., Roberts, T.J. and Valentine, T.A. 2006. Root responses to soil physical conditions; growth dynamics from field to cell. Journal of Experimental Botany 57, 437-447.
• Dunbabin, V., McDermott, S. and Bengough, A.G. 2006. Upscaling from rhizosphere to whole root system: modelling the effects of phospholipid surfactants on water and nutrient uptake. Plant and Soil 283, 57-72.
• Feeney, D., Hallett, P.D., Rodger, S., Bengough, A.G., White, N.A. and Young, I.M. 2006. Impact of fungal and bacterial biocides on microbial induced water repellency in arable soil. Geoderma 135, 72-80.
• Hamza, O., Bengough, A.G., Bransby, M.F., Davies, M.C.R. & Hallett, P.D. 2006. Biomechanics of plant roots: estimating localised deformation with particle image velocimetry. Biosystems Engineering 94, 119-132.
• Humphris, S.N., Bengough, A.G., Griffiths, B.S., Killham, K., Rodger, S., Stubbs, V., Valentine, T.A. and Young, I.M. 2005. Root cap influences root colonisation by Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 on maize. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 54, 123-130.
• Wang, J., Zhang, X., Bengough, A.G. and Crawford, J.W. 2005. Domain-decomposition method for parallel lattice Boltzmann simulation of incompressible flow in porous media. Physical Review E 72, 016706-1-016706-11.
• Zhang, X., Crawford, J.W., Deeks, L.K., Stutter, M.I., Bengough, A.G. and Young, I.M. 2005. A mass balance based numerical method for the fractional advection-dispersion equation: Theory and application. Water Resources Research 41, W07029.
• Bengough, A.G., Gordon, D.C., Al-Menaie, H., Ellis, R.P., Allan, D., Keith, R., Thomas, W.T.B. and Forster, B.P. 2004. Gel observation chamber for rapid screening of root traits in cereal seedlings. Plant and Soil 262, 63-70.
• Deeks, L.K., Bengough, A.G., Low, D., Billett, M.F., Zhang, X., Crawford, J.W., Chessell, J.M. and Young, I.M. 2004. Spatial variation of effective porosity and its implications for discharge in an upland headwater catchment in Scotland. Journal of Hydrology 290, 217-228.
• Iijima, M., Higuchi, T., Watanabe, A. and Bengough, A.G. 2004. Method to quantify root border cells in sandy soil. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 36, 1517-1519.
• Zhang X.X., Deeks L.K., Bengough A.G., Crawford J.W., Young I.M. 2005. Determination of soil hydraulic conductivity with the lattice Boltzmann method and soil thin-section technique. Journal of Hydrology 306: 59-70.
• Stubbs, V.E.C., Standing, D., Knox, O.G.G., Killham, K., Bengough, A.G. and Griffiths, B.S. 2004. Root border cells take up and release glucose-C. Annals of Botany 93, 221-224.

Posters

(View all posters)

Attachment	Size
Computer visualisation of root morphogenesis	121.03 KB
Root border cells in the rhizosphere	119.07 KB
Root growth responses to soil physical conditions	125.51 KB
Fungal and plant influences upon soil wetting	381.06 KB
A phenotypic screen for genetic analysis of barley seedling root traits	234.79 KB
Role of border cells in root growth and rhizosphere interactions	420.13 KB
Computer visualisation and modelling of plant morphogenesis: In-vivo segmentation and tracking of cells using confocal microscopy	230.65 KB
Computer visualisation and modelling of plant morphogenesis: Optical flow analysis of time-lapse confocal microscopy images	209.85 KB
Root growth responses to soil physical properties	192.39 KB
Do mixed cultivars outperform monocultures under defined soil tillage regimes?	289.42 KB
How do cultivar mixtures perform under defined soil tillage regimes?	411.09 KB
Genetic variation and interactions of root traits involved in plant:soil physical interactions	134.99 KB
Plant growth responses to soil physical constraints	203.87 KB
Defining the soil for controlled environments and in the field	897 KB
SCRI examples
PlantVis: Quantitative motion analysis of time-lapse confocal laser scanning microscopy images: application to plant root growth	962.38 KB
Quantitative analysis of root responses to multiple physical constraints: effects of soil pore structure	629.95 KB