Fine root mass temporal prediction method: contributions from Atlantic Forest

Fine roots, as foraging structures, can form complex and variable networks in soil, requiring significant time and effort to sample them. The objective of this study was to investigate whether, by selecting the best fit model to accumulated mass curves, it was possible to decrease the fine root sampling time interval in the temporal prediction method, without affecting the estimation accuracy. To this, roots with diameter ≤ 2 mm were considered as fine roots and were manually removed from each soil core over 60-time intervals of 2 minutes. At the end of each time interval roots collected in the field were stored in paper bags (properly identified) and frozen. Later, in the laboratory, the sampled roots were washed and dried at 60 ° C until their mass became constant and finally weighed. In the column "time" is this the duration of the collection (cumulative series of 2 minutes), while in the other columns, is the fine root mass accumulated over time for each soil core.