Fig. 2.

Profile of hydraulic conductivities as a function of distance from root tip. (A) Profile of radial conductivity (k_r) and axial conductivity (k_x) along lateral roots. (B) Profile of radial and axial conductivity along the taproot. We used three different scenarios to estimate the profile of the conductivities. In scenario 1 and 2, we imposed a linear and exponential function to estimate the profile of conductivities, respectively. In scenario 3, k_r and k_x of the lateral root were estimated using a step-wise function with three transition zones and those of the taproot were fitted to be homogenous along the taproot. The grey strips around the lines show the 95 % confidence interval of estimated conductivities. The data of k_r and k_x obtained from scenario 2 are given in Supplementary Data Tables S1 and S2.