See-through soil developed

Researchers from the James Hutton Institute and the University of Abertay Dundee have developed a transparent soil which will enable them to study roots in detail. The research is detailed in PLOS ONE. After two years of trial and error, the researchers found success with a synthetic composite called Nafion, which is often used in power-generating fuel cells. Not transparent on its own, the synthetic soil becomes translucent when saturated with a special water-based solution. The new compound has many similar biological and physical properties to real soil, such as water retention, nutrient-holding ability and capability for sustaining plant growth.

Dr Lionel Dupuy, a theoretical biologist at the James Hutton Institute, said: "With this new technique, scientists now have a way to observe soil processes, live and in situ. This is exciting because there are so many things to discover in soil and we don't know yet what they are."

The creation of the new transparent soil marks a milestone in the study of the rhizosphere, the underground world of plant roots. The researchers suggest that there are many different scientific disciplines that could benefit from the research, from the study of spread and transmission of soil-borne pathogens to screening the root systems of a range of genotypes in crop genetics

Physiologists could also use transparent soils to understand how plants or microbes access nutrients that are heterogeneously distributed in soil. Soil ecologists could use this system to make microcosm experiments where observation on interactions of different species can be observed," Dupuy added.

Future applications of the research will focus on controlling a larger range of chemical and physical properties in order to apply transparent soil to as many scientific disciplines as possible.