Climate change will likely increase the frequency of extreme events, such as drought, and there is a need to increase the resilience of food crops, particularly in arid regions. It has been observed in China that pruning a maize crop in its early stage of growth improved its resilience to abiotic (non-living) stress, which we suspect is due to interactions between roots and soil that improve water use efficiency. Our aim is to assess, in a controlled environment, the effect of leaf pruning on the water use efficiency of maize under drought and salinity abiotic stresses by monitoring important soil and plant properties. Neutron tomography offers the exciting prospect of mapping root architecture and soil water distribution at the fine scale to study the underlying mechanisms. The data generated will validate field measurements in China and will assist the development of models.