New paper by Devesh Singh on hydraulic lift published in Plant and Soil

This work shows how a common mycorrhizal network can facilitate the transfer of hydraulically lifted water from a deep-rooted pigeon pea to shallow-rooted finger millet under drought conditions.

In this study Devesh Singh tested a model legume-millet intercropping system based on bioirrigation. “Bioirrigation” is based on the principle of hydraulic lift (HL) where transfer of water occurs through roots from wet soil layers to dry soil layers as a consequence of a soil water potential gradient. Specifically, the process of bioirrigation describes the water supply of a deep-rooted plant to a neighboring shallow-rooted plant.

In this study Devesh conducted pot experiments to test if a common mycorrhizal network (CMN) between legume and millet can connect the rhizosphere of legume and millet, and thus facilitated the transfer of HL water i.e. bioirrigation under drought conditions. In general, he found that only finger millet plants that were connected to pigeon pea via a CMN were able to utilize the HL water. As a consequence, finger millet bioirrigated by pigeon pea in the presence of a CMN was able to maintain its water relations during drought conditions and showed higher rates of survival than finger millet plants in monoculture. This finding has great potential for reducing drought induced crop yield loss in arid and semi-arid tropics.