Deep soil layers show the most pronounced genetic variation in wheat root length

Wheat is one of the most important cereals worldwide, yet significant gaps remain in our understanding of genetic variability in root traits, especially those associated with deeper rooting that support resource acquisition in challenging environments. Root traits are typically controlled by many genes with small effects and often display low heritability. Our aim was to develop a statistical approach to analyse root variation across soil depth and to determine where genetic differences in root intensity are most detectable. An experiment was conducted at the RadiMax semi-field facility, which is designed to measure deep root systems. Five years of phenotypic data recorded each June produced observations from 1500 rows. Each row captured root intensity across the soil profile from 0.6 m to 2.6 m, enabling detailed analysis of vertical root distribution. Across the five years, 513 winter wheat cultivars were grown in the facility, and among those 409 were genotyped with SNP chips. Depth-resolved regression models with random coefficients were used to quantify genetic and non-genetic variation in root intensity across soil depths, while accounting for spatial variation between rows. Random variation within rows was found to be constant across depths. The models showed that genetic variance for cumulative root intensity increased substantially below 1.1 m, with the deepest layers exhibiting the largest differences between wheat lines. Narrow-sense heritability of point measurements peaked at approximately 1.5 m ([Formula: see text]).