Root gene expression and the enrichment of Gene Ontology terms according to growth stage and substrate. (A) Variance Partitioning Analysis of RNAseq data with explained gene variance attributed to each experimental factor. (B), (C) Gene Ontology (GO) terms enriched by up- or down-regulated genes (p < 0.05) in the roots of maize. Point size encodes enrichment level (coverage or hits of differentially expressed genes within a specified GO category). (B) Effect of growth stage in the comparisons between BBCH19/BBCH14 (left panel), BBCH59/BBCH19 (middle), and BBCH59/BBCH14 (right). Red indicates up-regulation in later stages, blue up-regulation in earlier stages. (C) Effect of substrate (sand/loam). Red indicates up-regulation in sand, blue up-regulation in loam.