Effect of soil patchiness

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Table of contents

CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION: General Background
1. Role of Plant Roots
1.1 Main processes involved in water and nutrient uptake
1.2 Water transport in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum
2. Strategies deployed by plants to access essential soil resources
3. Root system architectures / rooting profiles
3.1 Common types of architectures
3.2 Functions of root system architectures
3.3 Interactions
4. Concluding remarks and aim of the work
CHAPTER II – INTRODUCTION: General context of the research on belowground interactions in young rubber tree plantations of northeast Thailand 
1. The rubber tree industry
2. Inter-cropping
2.1 Common rubber tree intercrops
3. The effect of inter-cropped species on rubber tree growth and yields
3.1 Effects of inter-crops on rubber tree growth
3.2 Effects of inter-crops on rubber tree yields
4. Competition problems potentially associated with inter-cropping
4.1 Resources use by inter-cropped species
4.2 Below-ground interactions in inter-cropping and agroforestry systems
5. Context of the research and working hypotheses
6. Main question addressed by this research
7. Expected outputs and outcomes of the research project
7.1 Scientific outputs and outcomes
7.2 Applied outcomes for farmers
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY
1. Introduction
1.1 Tools used to assess rooting patterns
1.2 Analysis of root growth potential based on apical diameter measurements
1.3 Choice of root parameters measured in this work
2. Experimental Materials and methods
2.1 Greenhouse Experiment
2.2 Field Experiment
CHAPTER IV: RESULTS
1. Results of the rhizobox experiments
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Overall root system development (rubber tree -corn association)
1.3 Root growth rate analysis at the individual root scale
1.4 Analysis of the above-ground development of rubber trees and intercrops.
1.5 Comparative assessment of the overall development of young rubber tree grown in association with cassava, corn and groundnut
1.6 Discussion and conclusions
2. Results of the field experiments
2.1 2006 Field experiment
2.2 2007 Field experiment
2.3 2008 Field experiment
2.4 Discussion of the 2007-2008 field experiments
2.5 Results of the 2007 and 2008 field experiments on cassava inter-cropping
CHAPTER V – GENERAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
1. Rhizobox experiment – discussion
2. Field experiments – discussion
3. Perspectives for future research
REFERENCES