A nondestructive method for measuring the volume of intact plant parts

Abstract

The volume of intact plant parts can be measured rapidly by means of a simple displacement technique. The procedure is to dip the root, shoot, or other plant part to be measured into a vessel of water standing on a top-loading balance and take the resulting change in the reading of the balance as an estimate of tissue volume. The method has been found capable of yielding highly reproducible measurements of conifer seedling shoot and root volumes. One use that has been made of the technique is in the non-destructive determination of the shoot:root ratio of seedlings which are subsequently to be used in growth studies. Another has been in the estimation of root growth capacity from measurements of the root volume of test seedlings made both at the beginning and end of a period of growth under standard conditions.