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CO 2 Enrichment at Night Affects the Growth and Yield of Common Beans
Author(s) -
Bunce James A.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
crop science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.76
H-Index - 147
eISSN - 1435-0653
pISSN - 0011-183X
DOI - 10.2135/cropsci2013.12.0803
Subject(s) - cultivar , phaseolus , daytime , yield (engineering) , carbon dioxide , carbon dioxide in earth's atmosphere , horticulture , zoology , biology , agronomy , ecology , atmospheric sciences , materials science , metallurgy , geology
Many experiments to determine the crop yield increase expected with rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration added carbon dioxide only during the daytime, without tests of whether elevation of carbon dioxide at night affected plant growth. In this experiment, two cultivars of common bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris L.) were grown in the field for 4 yr in open‐top chambers in which CO 2 was added during the day or the night, both day and night, or not at all. CO 2 was added to increase the concentration by 180 μmol mol −1 above that of the ambient outside air, which averaged 392 μmol mol −1 during the daytime and 503 μmol mol −1 at night. In the two cultivars, the average increase in seed yield above the ambient CO 2 treatment was 42% with daytime CO 2 enrichment and 77% with continuous enrichment. In both cultivars, continuous CO 2 enrichment increased the area of individual leaflets by about 40% compared with daytime enrichment. Leaflet size was the same with daytime CO 2 enrichment and with no enrichment. In one of the cultivars, nighttime CO 2 elevation alone increased leaflet size and seed yield. The results indicated that CO 2 enrichment at night had important consequences for the growth and yield of these bean cultivars, and that daytime‐only CO 2 enrichment greatly underestimated the yield increase likely to occur with rising atmospheric CO 2 concentrations.