Friday, February 22, 2013

Slight climate change can reduce drought effect in wheat

Phys.org: Increased carbon dioxide levels caused by climate change may help wheat cope with drought, according to researchers at The University of Western Australia.   In a world-first study, PhD student Eduardo Dias de Oliveira found that when wheat is exposed to more CO2, it is better able to cope with high temperatures and water restrictions.

As long as the temperature does not rise 2ÂșC more than average, combining the effects of elevated carbon dioxide and high temperature with water restrictions actually improves biomass and grain yield.

Mr Dias de Oliveira's finding could have significant impact on the future of crop production in the Mediterranean-type climatic wheat-growing regions of Australia, where climate change is expected to have a severe impact on annual yields of 20 million tonnes of wheat over the next 50 years.

…"Our studies unravelled the impact of interaction between elevated CO2, high temperature and water stress in wheat. The vital information generated from the project will help towards developing climate ready wheat for the future," Professor Siddique said.  The PhD project is supported by UWA, CSIRO and Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF)….

Hybrid wheat, shot by Dehaan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

1 comment:

jw said...

this is hardly a groundbreaking study and hardly a 'first'. it is well known that soil moisture increases under elevated CO2 by allowing more stomatal closure, especially in contained studies like this one using low tunnels.

also can you please start linking to the actual papers, so we can evaluate them ourselves without a whole lot of time to find them?