Development of ground penetrating radar for enhanced root phenotyping and carbon sequestration

Currently atmospheric carbon has reached 405 ppm or 720 GtC.  As is widely known, this increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are primary contributing factors in increasing global temperatures.  Current measurements show that sources of emission such as the burning of fossil fuels contributes 9.9 GtC/yr, while land use change contributes 1.5 GtC/yr. We have identified that crops possessing a subsurface rhizome in particular, in addition to high root biomass, are essential and capable of increasing crop derived soil carbon sequestration by 10-fold.  If the presence of a high biomass rhizome were bred into the world’s major grain crops wheat, rice, maize, barley, sorghum and millets and grown worldwide in no-tillage conditions, these crops could sequester and offset current carbon emissions by 9Gt carbon on a yearly basis. We have developed a new ground penetrating radar instrument and analytical software, which will be presented, as a needed for high throughput non-destructive phenotyping, selection and speed breeding new high root biomass cultivars of the worlds major cultivated crops and forages as a key component for crop-based carbon sequestration driven climate change mitigation.