Soil Physics Group

Welcome to the British Soil Physics Group page. This informal group has been in existance since 1980. If you are interested to see a list of previous meetings, follow this link. For more information about the group, future meetings etc, please contact Dr Sacha Mooney

Recent developments in the measurement of soil physical properties
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Wednesday 31 October 2007

The most recent meeting of the Soil Physics Group was be held at the end of October 2007.

Further details

41st Meeting of the British Soil Water Physics Group

Roots and the Soil Physical Environment
Wed 7 June 2006, University of Nottingham

 The 41 st British Soil Water Physics Group Meeting was held on a very warm June afternoon at the University of Nottingham and brought together ~25 people from around the UK. The session was chaired by Professor Iain Young from the University of Abertay with the focus on discussing the activity of roots within the complex soil environment.

The session opened with an excellent talk from Dr Wilfred Otten from Cambridge University who discussed the invasion of pathogenic fungi to root systems at the microscale and described the effect these processes have at larger scales from plants (macroscale) to the regional scale. Further attention was drawn to the effect soil structure has on pathozone dynamics. Dr Glyn Bengough (SCRI) then described the physical factors that limited root growth, and in particular, focused on mechanical impedance. Potential methods in order to make roots better biological drills were also considered. The first half of the afternoon’s session was brought to a close by our own Brian Atkinson from the University of Nottingham who discussed his current research attempting to quantify the effects of seedbed soil structure on crop establishment.

After a break (with the temperature still above 25°C and no air conditioning !), the second half of the session was opened by Dr Richard Whalley (Rothamsted Research) who spoke on the physical stresses that influence root elongation, particularly in drying soils. The talk highlighted the progress that had been made with matric potential measurements and the need for sensors to be developed for soil density measurements. The final talk of the day was given by Dr Ian Dodd of Lancaster University who discussed root-to-shoot signalling as an important mediator of shoot physiological processes. This talk was coupled with an explanation of how exploitation of soil moisture heterogeneity in agriculture would influence particular root-to-shoot signals, to influence shoot physiology.

The discussion and conclusions of such a diverse selection of talks was brought to a conclusion by Professor Young. It was suggested that ~ 15 years ago there was barely any interest in biophysics, however today it is a rapidly developing research area. Biophysics is extremely important in understanding the links of soil physics, biology and chemistry within such a complex environment as soil. Support is required for all researchers in this field, so the interactions from every perspective brought to forefront at this meeting was especially timely. And as such we very much look forward to the next meeting later this year at IGER.

Sarah Martin

1st Year PhD research student
University of Nottingham