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Root Secrets: How Defoliation Boosts Rhizodeposition

Main subject area: Sensing; perennial grain crops; deep roots; modelling

Short project description

Perennial grain crops such as intermediate wheatgrass (IWG) possess deep root system that are known to have a capacity to store greater amount of soil organic carbon (C) with roots as fresh litter and via rhizodeposition. However, little is known how dual-purposefully managed perennial grain crops alter their root growth and rhizodeposition following defoliation. Therefore, this master project aims at determining soil organic C dynamics by employing 13C pulse-labelling under dual-purpose IWG set up in field condition.

Department and supervisor

Eusun Han

Tenure Track Assistant Professor

Project start

Any time

Physical location of project and students work

Blichers Alle 20, Tjele, 8830-DK

Extent and type of project

30 ECTS: Theoretical thesis based on literature studies and/or analysis of issued and edited data sets.

45 ECTS: Experimental theses in which the student is responsible for collection and analysis of his/her own original data

Additional information

The master student will mainly learn and work on some of the followings: data acquisition (13C pulse-labelling; plant/soil analysis), data processing, data analysis (R program).

Relevant articles to read

Peixoto L, Olesen JE, Elsgaard L, et al (2022) Deep-rooted perennial crops differ in capacity to stabilize C inputs in deep soil layers. Scientific Reports 12:. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09737-1