Greenhouse effect causes better plant growth but reduces protein content of food plants

Written by Dr. H. P. Bustami

Sunday, 16 September 2007

Climate change effects on plant growth. Within the rings the carbon dioxide content was 550 ppm (Courtesy of Institute of agricultural sciences, Braunschweig, Germany)

The majority of scientists care more about the negative impact of the predicted increase of CO2 in the athmosphere. But some people like Hans Joachim Weigel from the Institute of agricultural ecology (federal science center for agricultural science, Germany) investigate the impact of an enhanced carbon dioxide content in the air on green plants. How far will the crops increase with increasing green house effect? This question Weigel and his team adressed in open field experiments for more than six years. The results have now been published in "Nature".

The scientists covered certain areas of a wheat field under a green house and enhanced the content of CO2 to 550 ppm. It is believed that in 50 years earth athmosphere will have a CO2-content like that. Recently it is around 380 ppm. Although carbon dioxide obviously works as fertilizer (the plants can use more CO2 for an improved photosynthesis) the scientists found simultaneously a protein content which was 20% lower than normally in the plants which grew under the artificial greenhouse effect.
With a better understanding of how our most important food plants react in the future to the man made greenhouse effect the scientists believe to contribute to a better breeding of adapted new higher grades of wheat, rice or corn ensure also in 2100 a suitable food supply for the predicted 9 billion humans on our small planet.

Source: Weigel et al.: Future crops: The other greenhouse effect. Nature, Band 448, S. 526-528 (2007).

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