These pictures are interesting, and will be useful in better understanding how plants grow, but they really haven't told us anything we don't already know. You can even see exactly what they described with your own eyes.
>>2047 It would be nice if they explained how the MRI was used to scan the root systems (magnetic labels? I don't fucking know) but I can't expect much from BBC's Science section and I can't be arsed to go read the methodology myself.
>Each plant appeared to be trying to escape its pot; more than three quarters of the root system was in the outer half of the container.
Hm, does that mean that watering and providing feed etc. to potted plants would be best done around the edges of the pot? If this is widely-accepted knowledge to gardeners then I do apologise, I'm afraid I am not green-fingered in the slightest and tend to inherently mistrust plant biologists for thinking the Calvin cycle is in any way exciting.
>>2048 >It would be nice if they explained how the MRI was used to scan the root systems (magnetic labels? I don't fucking know) but I can't expect much from BBC's Science section and I can't be arsed to go read the methodology myself.
In an unscientifically correct explanation is that MRI scanners work by detecting Hydrogen, i.e. water. I think they just let the soil dry out then stuck it in an MRI like anything else.
>Hm, does that mean that watering and providing feed etc. to potted plants would be best done around the edges of the pot?
Not really, any water or feed you put in will spread out pretty homogeneously. The point of all this is that when the roots reach the limits of the pot, the plants growth will stop. It's referred to as becoming "pot bound"
Seems a bit pointless but maybe something new will come of it once they dig into it. They could have lifted out pretty much any pot plant from the pot and asked a gardner for the same info.
