Parent institution: Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke)
Active since 2020
Active through all year
Finér, Leena
email: leena.finer@luke.fi
The root laboratory is a unique facility in the European scale. It consists of four large chambers with 24 large root containers. Air and soil conditions can be controlled independently. The annual cycle of trees or herbaceous plants can be speed up, e.g. 2.5 cycles of boreal trees in one calendar year.
Environmental conditions and root and shoot responses can be monitored continuously and/or at intervals. This allows detailed studies on the dynamics of root and shoot responses, carbon sequestration and its allocation between organs in response to changing environmental factors.
Country: Finland
Latitude: 62.6
Longitude: 29.75
Nearest town: Joensuu
Distance from neaerst town: km
Plant responses to different environmental factors in changing and variable climate conditions in forestry and agriculture, with a special focus in root responses to different soil conditions.
The root laboratory is a unique facility in the European scale. It consists of four large chambers with 24 large root containers. Air and soil conditions can be controlled independently. The annual cycle of trees or herbaceous plants can be speed up, e.g. 2.5 cycles of boreal trees in one calendar year. Environmental conditions and root and shoot responses can be monitored continuously and/or at intervals. This allows detailed studies on the dynamics of root and shoot responses, carbon sequestration and its allocation between organs in response to changing environmental factors.
Root studies are very laborous. Therefore, there is a shortage of human and financial resources for running the large experiments and analyzing of the collected data. Air temperature below 0C is not possible in the chambers. The soil temperature in all 6 containers of one chamber is the same but it can different in different chambers. With special arrangements can be obtained two soil temperatures in one chamber, one is the same as air temperature and another is variable. Analysis of minirhizotron images strongly demands automatization e.g. using the approach of artificial intelligence.
Six common type of growth chambers (PGW36, Conviron, Canada) and three growth rooms (GR77, Conviron, Canada) for running experiments in fully controlled and a greenhouse for semi-controlled conditions. There are instruments for studying growth, phenology and morphology of roots, physiology, anatomy, morphology, phenology and growth of aboveground parts. There is remote monitoring and programming of the chamber conditions. There are facilities for running controlled freezing tests for frost hardiness assessment of plants or their parts.
Several annual cycles of plants, including consecutive dormancy and growing seasons, can be run in one calendar year by manipulation of the environmental regimes.
Experiments duration: Weeks, Months, Years;
Total area: 42 m²
Total area 42m2 that is divided in four chambers with six large root containers (lysimeters) in each chamber. Manipulations of air and soil regimes can be made independently in each of 4 chambers.Available area: 70 m²
Greenhouse facility and several common type of growth chambers available (total of 160m2) (see point 14). The available space depends on the experiments of other researchersunit size: 40 m²
Light canopies are movable up and down depending on the size of the plants in the experiment.Replicates number: 4
Depends on the experimental set-up. For air temperature and photoperiod it is four and for soil temperature five. Soil water table can be adjusted for each of 24 containers independently.We can simulate different kind of extreme conditions and their variation in soil and air (not below 0C), and their impacts on root and shoot responses and growth of trees and herbaceous plants.
Electricity available on site.
Years measured: 40
Mean Temperature: 3.5 °C
February Mean Temperature: -9.7 °C
July Mean Temperature: 17.2 °C
Mean Annual Speed: 4.5 m/s
Max. Annual Speed: m/s
Dominant Direction: South-West
Precipitation type: Rain, Snow;
Total annual precipitation: 650 mm
Mean snow cover duration: days
| Variable | Ecosystem | Status |
|---|---|---|
| CO2 | Forest | Planned |
| Warming | Forest | Active |
| Precip | Forest | Active |
| Hydro | Forest | Active |
| Management - Nutrients (levels or nutrient type) | Forest | Active |
| Management - species and/or ecotype combinations | Forest | Active |
| Management - traditional (or native) vs. new (or non-native) species | Forest | Planned |
| Warming | Agrosystem | Planned |
| Precip | Agrosystem | Planned |
| Hydro | Agrosystem | Planned |
| Management - Nutrients (levels or nutrient type) | Agrosystem | Planned |
| Management - tilling or other physical manipulation | Agrosystem | Planned |
| Management - species and/or ecotype combinations | Agrosystem | Planned |
| Warming | Grassland | Planned |
| Precip | Grassland | Planned |
| Hydro | Grassland | Planned |
| Management - Nutrients (levels or nutrient type) | Grassland | Planned |
| Management - rotation practice | Grassland | Planned |
| Management - species and/or ecotype combinations | Grassland | Planned |
| Warming | Wetland | Active |
| Precip | Wetland | Active |
| Hydro | Wetland | Active |
| Management - Nutrients (levels or nutrient type) | Wetland | Active |
| Management - species and/or ecotype combinations | Wetland | Active |
No on-site staff.
No on-site staff.
Up to 80 visitors
No beds on site
No showers on site
No laundry on site