Roots help keep plants alive. They take in water and minerals. But do you know how much of a plant is made up of its roots? Or whether roots always grow down? Let's experiment to find out! Learn more about plants in the Plant Experiments series—part of the Lightning Bolt BooksTM collection. With high-energy designs, exciting photos, and fun text, Lightning Bolt BooksTM bring nonfiction topics to life!

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and text highlighting for an engaging read aloud experience! Roots help keep plants alive. They take in water and minerals. But do you know how much of a plant is made up of its roots? Or whether roots always grow down? Let's experiment to find out! Learn more about plants in the Plant Experiments series—part of the Lightning Bolt BooksTM collection. With high-energy designs, exciting photos, and fun text, Lightning Bolt BooksTM bring nonfiction topics to life!

Explains what roots look like and how they function in plants.

Plants have roots, stems, leaves, and sometimes flowers. Each part of a plant does a special job. But do you know what a stem does? Or how different seeds travel away from their parent plants? Let's experiment to find out! Simple step-by-step instructions help readers explore science concepts and analyze information.

Sunlight, air, water, and minerals help keep plants alive. But do you know how much water is needed for a seed to sprout? Or what a plant will do to find the light it needs? Let's experiment to find out! Simple step-by-step instructions help readers explore key science concepts. Projects include materials easily found around the house and will inspire learning and creativity!

A plant's environment helps it grow. Weather, soil, and animals are important to a plant's survival. But do you know what happens to a plant when the seasons change? Or how earthworms help a plant's roots? Let's experiment to find out! Simple step-by-step instructions help readers explore science concepts and analyze information. Projects include materials easily found around the house and will inspire learning and creativity!

"Presents several easy-to-do science experiments using plants"--Provided by publisher.

Root research under natural field conditions is still a step-child of science. The reason for this is primarily methodological. The known methods are tedious, time consuming, and the accuracy of their results is often not very great. Many research workers have been discouraged by doing such root studies. The need for more information on the development and distribution of plant roots in different soils under various ecological conditions is, however, obvious in many ecological disciplines. Especially the applied botanical sciences such as agriculture, horticulture, and forestry are interested in obtaining more data on plant roots in the soil. This book will give a survey of existing methods in ecological root research. Primarily field methods are presented; techniques for pot experiments are described only so far as they are important for solving ecological problems. Laboratory methods for studying root physiology are not covered in this book. Scientific publications on roots are scattered in many different journals published all over the world. By working through the international root literature I found that about ten thousand papers on root ecology have been published at the present. This is not very much compared with the immense literature on the aboveground parts of the plants, but is, however, too much to cite in this book.

Understanding Roots uncovers one of the greatest mysteries underground—the secret lives and magical workings of the roots that move and grow invisibly beneath our feet. Roots, it seems, do more than just keep a plant from falling over: they gather water and nutrients, exude wondrous elixirs to create good soil, make friends with microbes and fungi, communicate with other roots, and adapt themselves to all manner of soils, winds, and climates, nourishing and sustaining our gardens, lawns, and woodlands. Understanding Roots contains over 115 enchanting and revealing root drawings that most people have never seen, from prairies, grasslands, and deserts, as well as drawings based on excavations of vegetable, fruit, nut, and ornamental tree roots. Every root system presented in this book was drawn by people literally working in the trenches, sketching the roots where they grew. The text provides a verydetailed review of all aspects of transplanting; describes how roots work their magic to improve soil nutrients; investigates the hidden life of soil microbes and their mysterious relationship to roots; explores the question of whether deep roots really gather more unique nutrients than shallow roots; shares the latest research about the mysteries of mycorrhizal (good fungal) association; shows you exactly where to put your fertilizer, compost, water, and mulch to help plants flourish; tells you why gray water increases crop yields more than fresh water; and, most importantly, reveals the science behind all the above (with citations for each scientific paper). This book contains at least eighty percent more new information, more results of the latest in-depth and up-to-date explorations, and even more helpful guidelines on roots than the author’s previous book (Roots Demystified: Change Your Garden Habits to Help Roots Thrive). This is not a revised edition—it’s a whole new stand-alone book.

Learn why plants bend toward the light; learn what a hypothesis is and how to test it and learn what type of scientist studies plants.