The phrase "maintain roots" is correct and commonly used in written English.
Example: In order to keep our culture alive, it is important to maintain our roots and traditions.
Concerned about how industrialisation eroded workers' links with their mountain origins, Zegna saw easier access as a way to maintain roots and widen public appreciation of the area's beauty.
There is an affordable housing shortage, a crisis, which the real estate development community can help to address, but a considerate approach to a neighborhood's needs, and collaboration with community partners is absolutely necessary to help residents maintain roots within their communities.
In roots, RSS3 likely contributes to repress the jasmonic acid response in salt stress conditions to maintain root growth.
Allelic diversity and subsequent tolerance genes may thus be encountered for less fundamental processes such as the ability to maintain root growth or root hair elongation under a combination of drought and P deficiency.
That several genes associated with two of these processes were among the few genes with significantly higher expression in roots of NIL6-4 could therefore suggest that they are involved in the ability to maintain root growth and/or root hair elongation in P-deficiency-tolerant NIL6-4.
In fact, enhanced expression of XTH has been observed in maize roots under flooding where it was associated with aerenchyma formation (Saab and Sachs 1996) and in drying soil where XTH was thought to help maintain root elongation rates at low water potential (Wu et al. 1994).
The enzymatic reactions required to maintain/regenerate ascorbate and provide H2O2 are essential components to maintain root growth and are likely associated with Al tolerance.
Recently, it was reported that PIN2 in Arabidopsis was required to maintain root growth under alkaline stress conditions by modulate proton [H+] secretion [ 29].
If P is indeed directly limiting plant growth under more severe P deficiency, distributing a bigger proportion of assimilates to roots to maintain root growth or to enhance root exudation may not represent a critical cost factor for plants.
The ability to maintain root elongation under Al stress may require complementary mechanisms such as Al sequestering (outside the cell, or Al exclusion) and increased expression of genes involved in detoxification or root growth.
Alternatively, salt tolerance may be the result of one or two parameters such as S. pennellii's increased root to shoot ratio or its ability to maintain root growth during salinity, thus insuring adequate water uptake in soil with reduced osmotic potential.
