Abstract: Nutrient and water uptake by the root system is a critical component of plant productivity and plant root systems have evolved to be extremely effective at exploring and exploiting the soil. However, we still have a remarkably poor understanding of the dynamics of the development of the root systems and how, at a cellular and molecular level, control systems operate to precisely regulate the direction and extent of growth. Similarly, we are now only just beginning to appreciate how these features of growth are integrated into the role of the root system in nutrient and water uptake. Our research has revealed a highly dynamic and complex regulatory network involving rapid, fluctuating patterns of acidity, chemical oxidation and classic signaling molecules such as the calcium ion that are integrated to modulate root growth. I will discuss how these patterns play out with time courses of a few seconds, bringing the regulation of plant growth into the temporal realm we usually associate with animal responses.