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CO 2 enrichment of sour orange trees: 2.5 years into a long‐term experiment
Author(s) -
IDSO S. B.,
KIMBALL B. A.,
ALLEN S. G.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
plant, cell and environment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.646
H-Index - 200
eISSN - 1365-3040
pISSN - 0140-7791
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3040.1991.tb01512.x
Subject(s) - orange (colour) , horticulture , volume (thermodynamics) , botany , mathematics , biology , physics , quantum mechanics
. Eight sour orange trees have been grown from seedling stage in the field at Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A., in four identically‐vented, open‐top, clear‐plastic‐wall chambers for close to 2.5 years. Half of the chambers have been maintained at ambient atmospheric CO2 concentrations over this period, while half of them have been maintained at 300 ppm (300 μlmol CO 2 per mol air) above ambient. Initially, the trees in each treatment were essentially identical; but in less than 2 years, the trunks of the CO 2 ‐enriched trees had become twice as large as their ambient‐treatment counterparts. After 2 full years of growth, the enriched trees had 79% more leaves, 56% more primary branches with 172% more volume, 70% more secondary branches with 190% more volume, and 240% more tertiary branches with 855% more volume. In addition, the CO2‐enriched trees also had fourth‐, fifth‐ and sixth‐order branches, while the ambient‐treatment trees had no branches above third order. Total trunk plus branch volume of the CO 2 ‐en‐riched trees was 2.79 times that of the ambient‐treatment trees after 2 fulf years of growth.