root zone

See also: rootzone

English

Alternative forms

• rootzone

Etymology

From root +‎ zone.

Noun

root zone (plural root zones)

1. The region of soil in which the roots of plants can effectively extract water and nutrients essential for growth.
   • 1890, University of Wisconsin-Madison, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Research Division, Annual Report of the Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Wisconsin for the Year Ending June 30, 1890, page 139:

     So, too, repeated watering of this character would only exaggerate the difficulty until the soil of the root zone was too far dried to be further affected in the manner under consideration.

   • 1973, McGraw-Hill Book Company, McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science and Technology, page 382:

     Tensiometers placed in the active root zone and near the bottom of the root zone (corresponding to depths of 30 and 60 cm in the figure) provide information that permits control of deep percolation.

   • 1986, Roger H. Mitchell, Kimberlites - Mineralogy, Geochemistry, and Petrology, page 83:

     The root zones demonstrate that repeated injections of different batches of kimberlite magma have occurred and that sufficient time was available for each batch to crystallize completely prior to emplacement of younger magmas

   • 2011, Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail Or Succeed: Revised Edition, page 401:

     If the salt below the root zone just stayed there, it wouldn't be a problem.