The information of a plant root distribution allows defining regions of soil around it suitable for fertilizer application and for sensor placement in order to improve irrigation schedule. The present study had as objective to evaluate root system distribution of banana cv.'Prata-Anã' irrigated by different systems, during the second production cycle. The experiment followed a random block design in a split split-plot scheme with three replications in which the variation sources consisted of three irrigation systems (drip, microsprinkler and conventional sprinkler), six distances from plant (0.15; 0.30; 0.45; 0.60; 0.75 e 1.00 m) and five soil depths (0.0 - 0.20; 0.20 - 0.40; 0.40- 0.60; 0.60 - 0.80 and 0.80- 1.00 m). The banana root system remained near-surface soil, with its 80% at 0.61 m, 0.51 m and 0.61 m depth and at effective distance of 0.63 m, 0.66 m 0.79 m from the pseudostem for irrigation systems, drip micro sprinkler and conventional sprinkler, respectively. In general there were more roots with diameter less than 2 mm all over the evaluated root zone. The roots of larger diameter tended to concentrate near to the pseudostem with depths less than 0.40 m from soil surface.
digital image; root system; Musa spp
