Title: re: Herbicide may affect plants thought to be resistant
Root hydraulic conductivity is likely modulated by specific protein channels called hydroporons and most water seems to be actively taken up through these regulated channels. Since the concentration and distribution of hydroporons is regulated by plant demand for water and apparently modulated by hydraulic conductivity and cell osmolality, shorter root hairs will quite likely be compensated for by a more dense distribution of channels to maintain constant root conductivity. Give this phenotypic plasticity; it is quite unlikely that this shortened root hair phenomenon would have any biological effect at all on either water uptake or the minerals that are carried to the root through this process.