Does mucilage governs rhizosheaths development under drying and wettingCycles?

Mucilage helps in rhizosheath formation. Rhizosheath is known as the soil attached to plant roots when excavated from the soil after gentle shaking. However, very little is known about mucilage role in the development of rhizosheath under various alternate drying and wetting cycles. This study is design to test the formation of rhizosheath by inducing alternate drying and wetting cycles in the presence of chia seed mucilage. For this experiments, we have used sterilized and unsterilized soils with different clay contents. Sterilized soils are often used in experiments related to soil microbiology. But for underground process like rhizosheath formation it’s very less common. Therefore, we intended to use sterilized and unsterilized soils with 22% and 32% clay contents to check the rhizosheath formation. Sterilized soils were autoclaved at 121^oC /103 kPa for 30 min on three consecutive days. After that soils were incubated at 25^oC and drying and rewetting cycles were induced to a water holding capacity at field capacity of 75% at regular four intervals. Soils were treated with 0.3% [mg dry mucilage/ g of water] of chia seed mucilage and artificial roots made of flax cord will be used as modeled plant roots. Rhizosheath formation were examined after four wetting and drying cycles. Our preliminary results indicated significantly higher rhizosheath development in unsterilized soils as compared to sterilized soils. In parallel study, we also planned to check soil aggregation by scanning electron microscope (SEM).The quantitative findings of analysis will be presented and discussed.