whereas cup plant relied more on biopore-mediated flow, these biopores were partly blocked by roots and organic matter, in part reducing conductivity.

Congratulations to L. Rohlmann for this outstanding research! 👏
#SoilScience #PerennialCrops #CarbonSequestration

Interestingly, this process may be strongly supported by soil (meso)fauna, which appear to play a key role in creating and maintaining these porous microstructures.
Both systems differed in how water moved through the soil, the crop rotation was dominated by matrix-driven flow....

Cup plant develops a biologically driven pore structure rich in biopores and organic matter.
We could follow the disintegration of roots into POM and found that POM within the soil matrix promoted the development of a porous matrix, a structure closely linked to soil organic carbon stabilization.

This study used X-ray microtomography (µCT) to visualize how ten years of Silphium cultivation reshape the 3D pore architecture of soil and how these structural changes control carbon storage and near-saturated water flow.
➡️ Key findings:

This rediscovery shows that smart soil interventions can leave a long-term ecological fingerprint — improving subsoil structure, supporting roots, and storing carbon.

Read our joint publication with @zalf.bsky.social , @ufz.de and @tuberlin.bsky.social here
🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🔹 Even more striking: these shafts contain particulate organic matter comparable to today’s topsoil — a clear sign of ongoing root growth and carbon input over decades. 🌱
🔹 The subsoils continue to act as active carbon reservoirs — with carbon levels similar to the topsoil >40a later.

🔹 Using X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT), we observed that the subsoil shafts created by mFDT show enhanced pore structure and biopore connectivity, especially in sandy soils.

Even after 40+ years, the soil still “remembers” the tillage pattern!

Those sites were eventually lost to time… until colleagues at the @zalf.bsky.social recently rediscovered them.

We returned to these historic fields to see if mFDT left any trace beneath the surface after four decades. What we found:

This leads to a self-organizing rhizosphere, balancing soil structure with biological activity, creating hotspots for microbes and improving water/nutrient flow.

Close to the root surface (<0.2 mm), root effects are visible, but beyond that, preference for existing pores matters more.

In sieved soils, roots compact narrow pores, but in intact soils with biopores, compaction is minimal—roots reuse existing pore networks instead.

Using repeated X-ray µCT imaging, this study separated root-induced effects (compaction, shrink/swell) from root growth preference (roots choosing existing pores).
Main finding: Growth preference, not root-induced changes, is the dominant driver of rhizosphere porosity