Now it's more CO2 that will threaten crops

It must be Grant Forcing. Where do they get their grants from?
Lisa Jackson?

It’s not that carbon dioxide is harmful to the plants but more that carbon dialectics are harmful.

“Historical records have documented that the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has increased by 39 percent since 1800.”
“If current projections hold true, the concentration will increase by an additional 40 to 140 percent by the end of the century”
So let’s get this straight, if CO2 levels were the norm in 1800, the rising of CO2 levels to todays +40% CO2 should already be interfering with plants’ ability to convert nitrate into protein and food quality should already be threatened. Is that the case?
This is just more delusional science.

In 1978, a CO2 blowout happened during oil exploration in Naihai County, Guangdong, China. Around the well, CO2 concentration was 3 times higher than in normal air. Both rice and wheat production increased for 3 years around the well. It was reported in newspaper of that time and you can even find here if you can read chinese:
http://rywen.net/view/186846

oldseadog says: (May 14, 2010 at 12:20 am) How does this fit with the tomato growers in the Netherlands who put added CO2, up to 1500ppm I have read, into the greenhouses and get better yields?
It probably fits well, because the research here does not seem to dispute “bigger” but does question “better”. We need to know the comparative nutritional values between the with and the without tomatoes before making a judgement on this basis. oldseadog.

OK,
I would very much like to see responses to this post.
UCD is next door and I have a number of direct contacts. However, I would rather engage on the science about this CO2 / Nitrogen connection.
Thoughts?

Just what we always knew – CO2 is plant food! A quick Google gives some other examples:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/6808988/Dutch-aubergine-grower-pipes-carbon-dioxide-into-greenhouses.html
http://www.shell.com/home/content/innovation/bright_ideas/growing_tomatoes/

I found it!
“Further research is needed..”
When nothing else makes sense, look for the pitch for more funding.

This, in posh parlance, is what we in the UK call purloining the micturation. Worse, they are doing it at our expense.
Sorry to repeat myself but these people call themselves SCIENTISTS?

I was going to respond in the vulgar form. However, being an Englishman & Brit, & a reasonable gentleman, I merely suggest that this paper sounds to me like a complete load of small round things usually found in mens trousers! (Fellow Brits know the term well!) Was there any scientific study actually done at all other than blowing bubbles in their beer to remove the CO2? Straws & clutching spring to mind.
A bit like the old joke about the three uni profs & the monkey! I won’t go any further – perhaps one day!

oldseadog says:
May 14, 2010 at 12:20 am
‘How does this fit with the tomato growers in the Netherlands who put added CO2, up to 1500ppm I have read, into the greenhouses and get better yields?’
But, it’s a lower quality yield. LOL

The money shot- ‘further research is needed’. If further research is needed, then shut your piehole until your research is finished.

You can’t really draw a conclusion from a press release. I’ve been studying studies lately (in another field) and I’ve been stunned at how universally study data does not support summaries and press releases. “Popular Science” (as in what’s reported to the world) is more mythology than I’d wanted to believe.
I’d want to know if they starved the plants for nitrogen (relatively speaking), and what the change in the rate of plant growth was – i.e. did CO2 inhibit absorption of nitrogen or did growth outstrip the availability of nitrogen?
Also, if increased CO2 causes some secondary slowing of growth in plants, why have other long-term studies caused growers to create special high-CO2 environments for more expensive and/or smaller volume crops? Are they just not very bright, or is the science just not as “settled” as the press release makes it sound?
Hopefully someone with better access to the data will get some answers from the authors, and/or they will have the time to answer here. If I can gather enough actual referenced data I’ll try to get through myself, but here I am at 2am checking the news before I sleep…

I am a layman, an old retired grain farmer but I have a standing invitation to short monthly internal seminars held in our large, for Australia,[ 200 Ag researchers and field support staff ] locally based Crop Research Institute.
This very subject came up yesterday in a discussion around another seminar subject.
The researchers here are conducting an international collaborative research project which includes China and other countries, all of which they exchange researchers with on a regular basis.
The research project which involves a number of international Agriculture Research organisations on a number of international sites and a number of different broad acre field crops and crop types, drifts controlled and high level concentrations of CO2 , I think of around 1000 ppm CO2 is the aimed for concentration , over small sections of open field crops to ascertain just what effect increased CO2 levels have on growth, quality and other plant characteristics under actual field simulated conditions and over the life of the crop.
One of the conclusions from the experiment so far and as expected, is that photo synthesis and plant bio-mass and yield do indeed increase substantially with the extra CO2 for exactly the same water availability and plant nutrient availability as the non CO2 enhanced adjoining crop.
However yesterday I heard from one of the researchers in the discussion after the seminar and for the first time that the grain and plant protein quality may be reduced with increasing CO2 levels due to changes in the plant biological processes under higher CO2 levels.
There were some possible biologically based reasons given for this effect but I didn’t note them so!
I don’t know any further details and my impression was that it was too early days yet to be drawing any firm and definite conclusions about this effect.
And these guys and gals don’t have any contacts that I know of with UC Davis.
I won’t vouch for the total accuracy of my recollections but the quality question under increased levels of CO2 just came out of the blue and was completely unknown to myself prior to the discussion after the seminar presentation and with the contacts I have in there, I probably would have heard of this previously if the information was around.
[ I am a trustee on behalf of the State’s grain farmers for the land, bought by the farmers some 45 years ago for this now major Ag research institute to be established on ]

Its not just the Netherlands. Its standard practice for greenhouses to pump in CO2 to increase yield. I’ve also seen mention of open field use of CO2 on crops which was also successful.
I heard an item on the radio this morning about the lizzards and laughed out loud. Talk about desperation. Lizzards are cold blooded and need heat. They’re much more likely to die in cold weather.
Honestly, they must think everyone is stupid. Even the most disinterested, unengaged person’s antennae must be rising at the ridiculous nonsense they’re coming up with and expecting us to swallow.

and next they will show, that water and fresh air are pollutants…

Ah an update of the old (and discredited) “progressive nitrogen limitation” hypothesis. This suggested that “limitations in the supply of nitrogen needed to support increased plant growth should over time reduce or eliminate any effect of atmospheric CO2 concentration on net primary productivity.”
Now that hypothesis has been debunked they seamlessly move on to “food quality” fears. Small reductions in %nitrogen under elevated CO2 have been noted for years. The key problem with this paper is that it reports results on the non-crop plant (Arabidopsis) and wheat- the latter is known to exhibit this %nitrogen reduction effect.
Thus, major crop species studied by Jablonski, L.M., Wang, X. and Curtis, P.S. 2002. Plant reproduction under elevated CO2 conditions: a meta-analysis of reports on 79 crop and wild species. New Phytologist 156: 9-26. showed that rice, soybean, barley, wheat and maize) were considerably more productive when exposed to elevated concentrations of atmospheric CO2, while only two of them (barley and wheat) exhibited (small) decreases in seed nitrogen content under such conditions.
To put these % seed Nitrogen reductions in perspective- according to the most recent publication of The National Academies Press – Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrates, Fiber, Fat, Protein and Amino Acids (2002) – the Recommended Dietary Allowance for both men and women is 0.80 g of protein per kg of body weight, which for the average (75 kg) man amounts to 60 g protein per day. Hence, for the average Westerner, comsuming a typical Western diet, instead of having 2.72 times as much protein as they require each day, they would have only 2.67 times as much protein.
Another Alarmist red herring.

In their most recent study, Bloom’s team examined the influence of elevated carbon dioxide levels and, in some cases, low atmospheric oxygen concentrations, on nitrate assimilation in wheat and Arabidopsis plants using five different methods.
Emphasis mine.
Just how *low* were those atmospheric oxygen concentrations — equivalent to, say, 18,000 feet?
And what were those five different methods? Withholding water, application of herbicide, exposing plant roots to actinic light, girdling the stalks, and over-watering?
A lot of alarmism with not a lot of information to back it up. Kinda typical of a press release…

So now I know why gardeners are asked to pump co2 into their greenhouses at 1,000pmm :o)
This is what happens when so much money goes into one scientific field, you get bare faced lies. Now look at some other examples of Co2 and increased plant growth.
C02 And Increased Plant Growth
http://aspenface.mtu.edu/
http://www.news.wisc.edu/17436
http://news.duke.edu/2009/08/carbonseed.html
http://www.ias.sdsmt.edu/STAFF/INDOFLUX/Presentations/14.07.06/session1/myneni-talk.pdf

@Oldseadog says:
May 14, 2010 at 12:20 am
How does this fit with the tomato growers in the Netherlands
———————————————————————–
It’s a perfect match – inhailing the plant makes the grower higher – exhailing the Co2 makes the plant grow higher

These people haven’t cottoned on that CO2 is necessary for plant-life, and therefore for oxygen replenishment…

“The researchers note that this effect could explain why earlier studies by other researchers have documented a 7.4-percent to 11-percent decrease in wheat grain protein and a 20-percent decrease in total Arabidopsis protein under elevated carbon dioxide levels.”
Why don’t they test all cereal crops? Maybe they did but looked for an example of diminished protien and published accordingly! You really do have to wonder about these people, it’s all bad i.e. a large increase in wheat production is nothing compared to a relatively small decrease in protein in wheat. Hey, eat nuts, beef, fish, eggs etc.
What alarmist claptrap!!

Are they saying that protein content of plants absolutely decreases with higher CO2? Or, are they saying that the protein content of plants does not increase at the same rate as organic mass? Could not find a specific statement.
The positive impact of CO2 on growth and plant yields has been recorded in numerous studies, see http://www.co2science.org/subject/a/summaries/agwheatpollution.php

Practically every commercial greenhouse jacks their CO2 levels to between 1,000 and 2,000 ppm–that’s a far better level than ambient and it is cost effective to do so. This article isn’t a Friday spoof, is it? OK, just kidding.
But the real gist of the article is seen in the statement “… further research is needed on how plants assimilate nitrate and ammonium, Bloom said.”
They should have said: “We’ve invented a problem; now, where’s the grant money to chase it?” I believe they’ve done the same thing with Global Wa… I mean, Climate Change. Sheesh.

And in what universe is nitrogen a mineral?

sorry, it was linked at climate audit. anyway:
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27939/1/HartwellPaper_English_version.pdf

In other words, putting plants in a jar and experimenting until the appropriate results were achieved.
I have trees that will not be exchanging gases this year as they were tricked into a very early season of opening their leaves. 2 nights of frost have made them look like fall.
Is CO2 more deadly to plant and animal life or cold? Hmmmm.

There were times with much higher CO2 concentration in the Earth history. I guess these were the moments when plant life went completely extinct.
Or do we miss something?

Here is the list of causes to Global Warming and the Extinctions it is causing:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

It has been said: One difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it’s limitations.

This just goes to show that you can get any answer you want if someone is paying you to produce propaganda.
Yes, it’s true that SOME cultivars lay down lower levels of protein under higher levels of CO2. Well, obviously, farmers wouldn’t grow those cultivars, then, would they? We’re not that stupid. We’ll be growing ones that thrive under the higher levels of CO2 and lay down more protein.
Check out some posts I’ve done on this issue
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/world-food-supplies-and-carbon-emissions/
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/crops-and-130-years-of-climate-records/
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/photosynthesis-and-co2-enrichment/
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/growth-of-crops-weeds-co2-and-lies/
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/co2-enrichment-and-plant-nutrition/

Then the Alarmists will tell us not to breathe because of excess CO2. 🙂

Grant forcing – that’s it.

“The researchers note that this effect could explain why earlier studies by other researchers have documented a 7.4-percent to 11-percent decrease in wheat grain protein and a 20-percent decrease in total Arabidopsis protein under elevated carbon dioxide levels.”
Wikipedia gives 12.6% protein in wheat.
When there is a 20% higher yield of wheat and a 9% decrease in wheat protein, in total the farmer harvests 9.5% more wheat protein.
In short: as you elevate levels of CO2, total yield rises sharply, while protein yield rises slower. The percentage of protein has decreased a bit, the total yield of protein has risen.
It does mean that if you depend on wheat for your protein, you will have to eat a few spoonfuls more.
Details, details.

OK. Lots of talk. Where’s the data?

It’s quite common to generate C02 to augment greenhouses. Just google Co2 Generator

what we need is a unfunded hot house owner to grow wheat under 1600 ppm co2

Isn’t the average greenhouse at about 1000 ppm CO2?
There’s a LOT of articles oriented for those using greenhouses on CO2 use, and a typical recommendation is two or three times the ambient amount (i.e. 600-900 ppm) for optimal plant growth. Example: http://www.advancegreenhouses.com/use_of_co2_in_a_greenhouse.htm
So, a 50% increase doesn’t seem worrisome, especially given how horticulturists have established norms way beyond that.
What the article is doing is presenting as sensationalistic that under different diets, etc. living things behave differently. One could write an equally alarmist-sounding piece about the dangers of suntanning (how tans leads to changed production of vitamin D for a given amount of sunlinght), etc.
Different is not necessarily bad — the article skirted this with implications (e.g less nitrogen to less protien) without quantifying how great the differences are (or if they’re even measurable).
Its a typical leftist/liberal/enviro-wacko tactic — make insinuations that play on emotions, which once activated don’t look for objective facts…human nature being what it is, once people get emotionally excited about something the subsequent introduction of objective facts, including facts that defuse the causes for emotional alarm, are at best only marginally examined. Here’s a political example of that pervasive shortfall that seems to be hard-wired into basic human nature:
http://www.salon.com/news/environment/mind_reader/2008/09/22/voter_choice/print.html
Of course, just a little cognitive exertion will overcome that…but most people are simply too lazy to exert the mental effort.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,nitrogen status of plants declines ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
We have good news and we have bad news. The crop yield is up 100% per acre. The protein yeild of the wheat per acre is up only 85%.
Send us money.
Also they did not confess that higher CO2 levels cause the plant to actually require less water for growth.

The leek shall inherit the earth.

The Koala thing…
I remember that one now that you mention it.
Re: the article – The lack of any quantifiable levels of CO2 raised my suspicion as well.
Plus the mention of lowered oxygen lvevels without any statement as to their purpose, effect or quantity.
I did find a similiar, earlier study by the same scientist online
http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.org/landingpage.cfm?article=ca.v063n02p67&fulltext=yes
In this article it appears most of the studies were conducted at 700ppm. Although the graph for measuring plant mass was done at 567ppm.
It does mention at one point that the Plant Mass vs. Protein could cancel each other out.
It makes me wonder if the huge increase in stem length and mass in the CO2 science video is the plants way of compensating by trying to get more Nitrogen from the soil.
From what I can see in the old article, the experiments were done in a lab environment, so probably had limited soil depth. Or perhaps they were done in a hydrponic setting

Greenhouses add CO2 to increase plant vitality & growth (to about 1000+ppm).
While UC Davis presents some seemingly/potentially alarming effects (which may not be for a variety of reasons) also bear in mind how CO2 and fertilizers & cross-pollination breeding has been conducted to impressive success in some areas.
Such as marihuana production — something achieved by a number of Canadian pot growers is a “highly enriched” potent form(s) of pot with THC (the active ingredient for getting “high”) at something like double or more the levels that occured in the late 1970s.
In other words, where there’s a market enterprising people will find a way to generate solutions to a problem or other shortfall.
Which is another identifying trait associated with the Leftist/liberal/enviro-whacko mentality — namely that the status quo is optimal and if it changes for any reason we are helpless to respond. Which history shows is completely untrue as so many of us are inspired to find solutions, etc. to any challenge (though, to concede a point, to a point, THEY may be helpless).
Given that the demand (and need) for food is unlikely to abate in the foreseeable future, I’m confident that IF the UC Davis findings are correct (that higher CO2 leads to less nutritious plants that lead to less nutritious food products, and that effect is not offset by higher volumes of plants, etc.) people will find some way of breeding plants that trive as desired in the conditions that exist.
After all, if a bunch of enterprising pot-heads can do it why can’t we?

This is all about aquaculture.
Fishing for grants.

Real worry is that with increase of CO2 TRex will return and eat us all. I went to the Dino exhibits and I saw with my own eyes the plants at the time of TRex and we don’t want that to happen ever again.

As a long-time (30 years +) advanced hobbyist in applying indoor hydroponic techniques to raise all manner of plants, I, like most greenhouse growers, pay good money to raise CO2 levels in my growing spaces. I run mine at ~500 ppm most of the time, but with some of my floral crops, I have been known to push that to ~1000 ppm for the duration of the flowering cycle.
It’s laughable that now some boffins have declared that a technique many of us have known and used for decades is evidence of the impending collapse of agriculture as we know it. Their study might have gone down a bit more easily had it had the phrase “Your mileage may vary” tagged on at the end (and in all honesty, not having access to the source study, I can’t swear that it doesn’t have the boffin-equivalent of YMMV).
Given UCD’s proximity to the Green Triangle in Northern California, these boffins best watch out – the commercial pot growers there are likely to become, er, restive should they believe the increased crop yields which allow them to supply 65%- 80% of the pot in America are being threatened by some lab-coated twerps seeking greater largess at the teat of NIS/NSF funding.
It’s a strange old life, it is.

Hemp (seed) is the answer.
If the questions are-
Do we need more food?
Do we need more food at higher latitudes?
Do we need more food at higher elevations?
Do we need more food using less pesticides?
Do we need more food using less herbicides?
Do we need more food using less fungicides?
Do we need more food using less fertilizers?
Do we need more food using less water?
Do we need up to 3 crops per year?
Without the usual need to rotate?
Blessing any other crop that is rotated with it?
Do we need safer, stronger, more recyclable, less polluting fibres?
Do we need 3 times the yield per acre?
For clothing?

For manufacturing?
Do we need fuel?
Hemp is the answer. CO2, at much greater concentrations than we currently suffer under, only helps this wonderful plant do all the marvellous things it does. Its closest relative is even better at all those things but we had best not go there 😉

http://www.agwbs.com/agw-is-fake/too-many-people-not.html

(Almost) everyone seems to be missing the point here: The study implies more CO2 decreases the plants NUTRITIONAL CONTENT. CO2 does have a large effect on plant growth (there is no question), but apparently that comes at the cost of proteins that make the plants nutritious to us (and livestock).
It’s like feeding a human lots of potato chips: there is a huge increase in size, but obvious negative side effects.

To develop solutions for dealing with the impact of major increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on crops, further research is needed on how plants assimilate nitrate and ammonium, Bloom said.
Sir, you are a pseudo scientific prostitute and an idiot.

In ‘Physiological plant ecology: ecophysiology and stress physiology of funcional groups’ (Springer, 2003), Walter Larcher writes:
“According to over 3000 scientific publications on the biology of CO2 effects, a broad spectrum of growth responses to CO2 enrichment exists. Since elevated CO2 often reduces the plants’ demands for other resources, CO2 effects on growth do not simply follow Liebig’s law of the minimum. Plants exposed to elevated CO2 need less enzymes (and thus lower quantities of leaf proteins and nitrogen), lose less water (can cope with less soil moisture and often operate at smaller stomata openings) and need less light (because of a shift in the light compensation point for photosynthesis) to reach the equivalent, or even higher photosynthetic rates than plants growing under control conditions with “normal” CO2 concentrations.”
Under ideal conditions, where there is no shortage of water, light, nutrients, trace elements etc, the benefit of doubling atmospheric CO2 may be 40%. However, where plants are resource limited, a doubling of CO2 can enhance growth of crops by over 100% in some cases. This is particularly important in regions of the world where the soil is poor for many reasons, since increasing atmospheric CO2 will enable crops to be grown efficiently where they currently cannot be grown without first improving the soil and irrigation.
In ‘Effect of Carbon Dioxide Concentration on Growth and Dry Matter Production of Crop Plants’ (Japan. Jour. Crop Sci, 1978) Imai and Murata showed that after 10 days of treatment with nitrogen at 350ppm and 1000ppm CO2 the dry weight (DW) of rice plants was as follows:
350ppm CO2, 30 mg nitrogen per plant DW = 835 mg per plant
350ppm CO2, 120 mg nitrogen per plant DW = 1,081 mg per plant
1000ppm CO2, 30 mg nitrogen per plant DW = 1,199 mg per plant
1000ppm CO2, 120 mg nitrogen per plant DW = 1,862 mg per plant
This demonstrates that at higher levels of atmospheric CO2, food crops have considerably lower requirements for fixed nitrogen for the same growth; alternatively, for the same nitrogen treatment they achieve considerably enhanced growth.
Higher levels of atmospheric CO2 lead to greater biological nitrogen fixation from the atmosphere, so less is required to be added as fertilizer. This is especially important in legumes, which are also able to improve their uptake and usage of phosphorus with increased CO2. Legume /bacterial symbiosis leading to nitrogen fixation is significantly increased at elevated CO2 levels (Reddy et al, 1989; Reardon et al, 1990). Philips et al (1976) demonstrated increased nitrogen fixation in peas, and Sherwood (1978) found the same in clover. A classic study by Hardy and Havelka (1975) showed that a tripling of atmospheric CO2 results in a six-fold increase in biological nitrogen fixation (from 75 to 425 kg per hectare) by rhizobial bacteria in nodules attached to the roots of soybeans.

@Steveta_uk
Yeah, I can’t believe this article has even been given so much focus (judging by the number of comments) when it can’t even clearly elaborate the difference between photorespiration and photosythesis… great science…

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071029172809.htm

Sylvan Wittwer (Professor emeritus at Michigan State University, who directed the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station for 20 years and chaired the Board on Agriculture of the National Research Council) has remarked:
“There has been and still remains, a great reluctance on the part of many climatologists and ecologists, and especially environmentalists, to accept the concept that the rising level of atmospheric CO2 could be more beneficial than harmful for plant growth, food production, and the overall biosphere…Yet the scientific evidence is overwhelming.”
The likes of Al Gore have been promoting the hogwash in his books. Wittwer points out that of the HUNDREDS of scientific reports documenting the benefits, Al Gore carefully selected FIVE reports and a personal communication to emphasize possible negative aspects to enhanced CO2 on plants. Gore knew what he was doing, of course – he either deliberately rejected the facts, or gave instructions to researchers for his book only to cherry pick papers that support his alarmist agenda.

Talk about skewed data presentation. I find incredibly deficient agronomic and physiologic thought in every sentence of this press release. For example, wheat varies from ~8 – 12% protein (50%), associated with cultivar and species (hard red winter wheat vs soft white spring wheat for example). If protein content is reduced 10%, but total yield is improved 11% by elevated CO2, more protein per unit planted area is produced. Since higher CO2 increases yield greater than 10%, a 10% reduction in per plant nitrogen is not significant. We can also eliminate the “alledged” protein reduction in a selection process called genetics (D0h!). Farmers already are very careful with their “ammonium” input. It’s called profit motive. I haven’t read the actual paper yet, so it’s going to be worse than I thought. I’m just sick of this BS and don’t have the stomach to read it this morning, but this is probably going to be absolutely the worst paper I have seen in my 30 years of plant science. I want to puke my degrees up. There’s a reason it was published in Science. It couldn’t make it to the big leagues (Crop Science, Plant Physiology, Agronomy Journal, etc., etc., etc. etc.).

Jarmo says: (May 14, 2010 at 3:24 am):”Are they saying that protein content of plants absolutely decreases with higher CO2? Or, are they saying that the protein content of plants does not increase at the same rate as organic mass? Could not find a specific statement.”
In governmentspeak a decrease in rate of increase is labeled a decrease. So if plant X has a protein content of Y and you increase the plant growth to 2X but the protein content is less than 2Y, it will be called a decrease in protein content.
Now, if there is an actual protein decrease rather than just a decrease in rate of increase, simply eat more meat!

Darn it, that is why Adonai invented sheep and cows. They turn plants into protein.

When you add CO2 to the greenhouses I suppose you get rotten tomatoes or flippy floppy tomatoes. That must explain it. Yeah sure, when you remove one of the constraints to growth you will be exposed to another. Duh.

Sounds like the rotten ice argument. With more CO2 you may get more of something but its all rotten.

Rising CO2 levels threaten crops and food quality
May 13, 2010
Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide interfere with plants’ ability to convert nitrate into protein and could threaten food quality, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis. The scientists suggest that, as global climate change intensifies, it will be critical for farmers to carefully manage nitrogen fertilization in order to prevent losses in crop productivity and quality.

1. The crop is NOT threatened
2 The yield is actually greatly increased
3 The robust increase in yield DOES NOT require a proportionate increase in watering.
4 The quality does not drop. They did claim to find a small increase in protein percentage. A large crop increase, protein increase but for example wheat would be 11% protein instead of 12% protein. They imply we will spend more time eating more food because of lower quality. That ONLY applies to a small extent to vegetarians with certain other restrictions in their diets.
5 These “ag scientists” are acting stupidly. Our herd of catle are fed plants. They do not eat meat. They turn carbohydrates into meat protein. Ruminants process rumen degradible protein. If it is too high, it is passed in the urine.
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/ruminant.pdf
When scientists in the name of politics hijack science and add spin to the “story” or “reframe” the story as Joe Romm claims, it must be dealt with.
Action step:
Order the burger as a chees burger with bacon to offsett the dangerous drop in protein in the pickles and onions. (ooops, the research was about mustard. The mustard on the burger is lower quality because it is slightly lower protein)

@Don Keiller
The article you cited is from a journal committed to “the quickest possible peer review.”
“We are committed to rapid processing – from online submission using Manuscript Central, enabling the quickest possible peer review, through to the use of e-proofs
and then publication ‘as-ready’ via Early View.”
http://www.newphytologist.com/view/0/authors.html
Here is a conclusion from a different paper:
“In unfertilized ecosystems, microbial N immobilization enhances
acclimation of plant growth to elevated CO2 in the long-term. Therefore, increased soil C input and soil C sequestration under elevated CO2 can only be sustained in the long-term when additional nutrients are supplied.”
http://faculty.jsd.claremont.edu/emorhardt/159/pdfs/2007/2_8_07.pdf
There are many papers out there pointing in various directions. It is foolish to assume only the ones with results you like are the only relevant ones. We are changing the composition of our atmosphere. We are changing the chemistry in our oceans. We are changing our climate. Some of these changes may be positive, but one would have to be hopelessly naïve to assume all is benign.

So
If it’s a 7-20% decrease in protein, but a 40-50% increase in mass, that’s a net gain.

So CO2 causes more rapid plant growth and you therefore need more NPK… what’s the big deal?

Glad some commenters mentioned that higher CO2 level results in plants using water much more efficiently. Adequate supplies of fresh water for irrigation and sanitation is a large and growing problem. Increased atmospheric CO2 concentration will go a long way towards ameliorating that particular problem. Supply of nitrogen fertilizers are not a problem. Phosphorous fertilizer is a major problem about to happen. There are only two major sources of phosphorous fertilizer in the world and their capacity to produce is reaching its limit. Excess phosphorous in runoff and wastewater is already a problem. Waste water treatment plants are scrambling for efficient ways to capture the excess phosphorous both to keep it away from where it doesn’t belong (lakes, rivers, and oceans which is the usual end-point for treated water) and to reduce the demand on the primary phosphorous mines.
Wheat is actually not a great source of nutrition for human beings. All kinds of health problems occur from gluten intake. It’s long been known that some people are so gluten intolerant it will kill them but it’s just been discovered recently that people who aren’t so gluten-sensitive also have problems from it. Rice, corn, and soybeans are gluten-free and generally much better for you. Soybeans are very high in protein content and they also take nitrogen from the air and fix it into the soil with the aid of symbiotic bacteria on their roots. More and better crop rotation with soybeans on wheat fields should be high on the list of things to do for a lot of good reasons.

The problem is not CO2 but who owns LAND in practice, if the farmers then it is OK, if the BANKS then we are back to Monarchy times, call it PLUTOCRATIC times if you wish, the ARISTOCRACY of a very small world banking elite.
Back in the 18th century land was owned by the land-lords, these were independent from the banks. Peasant were supposed to be slaves, though they could know, even be friends of their landlords. Revolutions changed this, democratizing property, but, as the wheel turned around through banks and through the Genetically Modified Seeds, which are STERILE (farmers can not obtain their own seeds), land is really owned by the very few worlwide land lords. You were free, now you became employees, clerks, servants, not even free peasants.

Henry chance says:
We have good news and we have bad news. The crop yield is up 100% per acre. The protein yeild of the wheat per acre is up only 85%.
Send us money.
==================
“You give us the money,
We’ll give you the honey.
And conversely:
No money: no honey.
Cause we’re professionals, honey.”

Chris says:
May 14, 2010 at 2:34 am
and next they will show, that water and fresh air are pollutants…
————-
humm…they already have. The reduction in tailpipe and stack pollutants has reduced their cooling effect, increasing the rate of warming.
So…air pollution control devices are enhancing AGW.
Clean air is a “bad” thing.

Oh, and to be fair I should mention that the video is not very compelling. Those plants were obviously grown under reduced light and are etiolated. Not representative of actual growing conditions.

oldseadog says:
May 14, 2010 at 12:20 am
‘How does this fit with the tomato growers in the Netherlands who put added CO2, up to 1500ppm I have read, into the greenhouses and get better yields?’
Ah yes, but those are rotten tomatoes.

Thanke Mike McMillan for your graph of Illinois corn yields, but most importantly, the information that there have been quite large swings in atmospheric CO2 concentration in the last 200 years. I was aware that there was a seasonal variation in CO2 levels, but it had never occurred to me that CO2 concentration in 1940 was 391.5 ppm. The graph you posted isn’t clear so I did a fast search for CO2 concentrations predating Mana Loa (anything before 1958) and was surprised by the result.
http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/literature/evidence-var-corrRSCb.pdf
is a paper that analyzes variability of CO2 concentration during the 20th century. The chemical means of analysis used prior to spectroscopic methods are very accurate with precision better than 1% (or even better in the hands of some people). What the data show is that in the 1940’s CO2 concentrations went up and the most interesting value is the 454.7 ppm CO2 measured in Antarctica in 1941. Averaging multiple sources gives about 410 ppm in the mid 1940’s
I just found this out today and these measurements would seem to invalidate AGW as we seemed to get through the 1940’s just fine with those “dangerous” atmospheric CO2 concentrations. I wasn’t born then, but I don’t recall my parents telling me about the rise in sealevels that flooded coastal areas, the spread of malaria in northern Europe, the disappearance of the polar bears and extinction of sea life because of falling ocean pH.
The data on CO2 concentration over the last 180 years tell me that we really haven’t a clue about what controls atmospheric CO2. Having worked in organic chemistry/biochemistry at one stage in my career I’m well acquainted with chemical methods of measuring trace gasses and believe the values that these scientists got. The only concern I would have is if some of the readings are skewed by the presence of a “CO2 island” effect as one would expect CO2 levels in an urban environment to be greater than in a rural environment. When multiple studies show a correlated rise in CO2 concentrations in the 1940’s then there was something very interesting happening at that time and I’m curious if the IPCC was aware of this research.

Sid F says:May 14, 2010 at 8:04 am
I also understand that much of the wheat we grow in the UK is not suitable for bread making, having a low protein content and being more suitable for cakes.
Then let them eat cake.

Here is a link to the study http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5980/899
It is a seedling study, the plants are not grown to maturity. In fact, they are grown for only a few days. It is a jump to assume that grain quality or quantity will suffer based on this study. Also, low light intensity maybe a reason for lower NO3 assimilation under higher CO2. You need the photons for the process to work properly.

If the requirements for plant growth are: Nutrients, Water, Light, CO2, it appears they amazingly “discovered” that when abundant CO2 drives growth to 200-300% of current yield, it needs enough nutrients to continue that growth. It could be that CO2 benefits the Aerial portion of the plant disproportionately to the root. The “epiphany” of this study is that fertilization may be necessary to continue maximum rate of growth. I could demonstrate that any day in my front yard with a bag of Scotts…. and I would only need a small grant of 3 or 4 hundred grand to complete this study. 🙂

“plants grow by using sunlight to turn water and carbohydrates into chemical energy in the form of plant sugars”
That statement would have gotten me an “F” in high school biology.
Plants in fact grow by first turning carbon from CO2 and hydrogen from H2O into simple sugars, releasing the oxygen from both into the atmosphere, and then the plant converts those simple sugars (carbohydrates), along with other trace elements, into the more complex carbohydrates the plant constructs itself of.
I know that when I was a farm lad back in the 1940s, a corn (maize) crop of 90 bushels per acre was considered to be a “bumper” crop. Today, 150 bushels per acre is considered to be an average harvest.
There is a reason why the numbers of humans on the planet could expand from well less than a billion circa 1900 to some 6 billion at the end of the 20th Century . . . there became enough food grown and harvested to feed such an expansion, and a goodly part of the increase in food supply was due to increased CO2 available to support adequate plant growth, and benign (that is warm) temperatures.

Did you know carbon dioxide also causes cancer? True story.

bubbagyro says:
May 14, 2010 at 9:33 am
//Of course it outstripped. Every gardener knows that when plants are dormant, you don’t fertilize them – they can’t use it. If plants in the summer are growing rapidly, of course you need to fertilize them more, not just with N but with P and K. Duh! (to UC Davis “scientists”)//
When I posted, the direct links had not been put up. Now that they have, a quick look suggests the study is far, far worse than I had assumed.
I’ve moved from the “I have questions” camp to the “what an obvious fraud” camp. There are so many confounding factors that attributing them all to simple errors just isn’t believable.
I may be nearing the end of my “always assume error rather than malfeasance” days.

According to GSWTMTOTH* , a major crisis facing the western world is childhood OBESITY. Thus, a reduction in the “nutrient content” of plant food caused by increased atmospheric CO2 levels will cure yet another societal malady. Sounds like we need more CO2, not less.
* Government Scientiests With Too Much Time On Their Hands

An alternate title for this piece….
“UC Davis Rediscovers Liebeg’s Law of the Minimum”

Donald Duck says:
May 14, 2010 at 11:11 am
It’s funny to see how people here feel like being scientists.
______________________________________________________
Some of the people here are in fact scientist.
Scientists have been known to be wrong.
Those who are scientists should be the very first to recognize that fact. Unfortunately some do not.
As for consensus views they are have been drastically incorrect at times as well.

CRS, Dr.P.H. says on May 14, 2010 at 10:35 am

*ahem* This is all bunk….carbon dioxide supplementation of greenhouses has been practiced for many years, with very positive results. ADM uses waste heat and carbon dioxide from ethanol fermenters to boost growth of hothouse tomatoes in Illinois.
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
“For the majority of greenhouse crops, net photosynthesis increases as CO2 levels increase from 340–1,000 ppm (parts per million). Most crops show that for any given level of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), increasing the CO2 level to 1,000 ppm will increase the photosynthesis by about 50% over ambient CO2 levels.”
According to my cool WUWT desktop widget, the Earth’s CO2 level is 389.64 ppm.
Crops should grow just fine. I’d expect extra nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers to be required anyway, as those would become growth-limiting.
Get ready for another green revolution.

I am sorry Dr P.H, but I put my faith in the Peer Review Process. It is fool proof and the way to true enlightenment. You have been fooled by those charlatans in industry again!

Doug in Seattle says:
May 14, 2010 at 8:50 am
Mike says:
May 14, 2010 at 7:26 am
“There are many papers out there pointing in various directions. It is foolish to assume only the ones with results you like are the only relevant ones. “
Doug in Seattle says:
May 14, 2010 at 8:50 am
“This is the heart of the matter, isn’t it? When a true scientist sees contradicting studies he looks for a way to disprove both. When a political scientist sees them he picks the one that supports his own “settled” view.”
Doug: The impact of higher CO2 levels on agriculture is not settled science. That higher CO2 levels lead to higher temperatures as well established. It is also clear that a wide range of environmental impacts will follow – however the details are far from settled.
It makes sense to be looking for ways to reduce our CO2 emissions. How best do to this is far from clear.

” it will be critical for farmers to carefully manage nitrogen fertilization”
I can assure you, they already do. Have been for many, many years.

Mike says:
May 14, 2010 at 12:44 pm
That higher CO2 levels lead to higher temperatures as well established.
Actually, no, Mike, it is far from being established at all. It has only been conjectured. The effects of higher C02 levels on climate are most likely small, and easily swamped by the far more powerful climate drivers of the sun and oceans.

bubbagyro says:
May 14, 2010 at 12:21 pm
[…. My credential is the scientific method: 1) formulate hypothesis, 2) conduct experiments designed to robustly disprove it (falsification) 3) read the experiment 4) reformulate hypothesis if it still is viable, or construct a new, often opposite hypothesis.
Anyone here on this blog is by definition a scientist if he does these things. …]
__________________________________________________________________________
Well not according to the “scientists” that think things are settled in the world of climate “science” because a number of them participate in egg stroking, then you need to have at least made it through Mrs. Smith third grade class even if your third grade teacher wasn’t Mrs. Smith.
I happen to agree that anyone can be a scientist provided they follow the principles.
However, it appears in the climate field things are back to pre Galileo times. Appeals to consensus and authority. Oh how far we have come only to be thrown backwards in time.
As one of my teachers said many years ago be sure to show all of your work, an answer without the work even if correct gets you a failing grade in my classes.
I’ve seen a lot of “answers” and damn little of the work come out of several branches of the “sciences” lately.

George E. Smith says on May 14, 2010 at 1:34 pm

Yes Richard, The peer review process is fool proof; after all those chaps at the CRU were not fools; they knew that in order to keep their gravy train running, they had to suppress peer review of contrary scientifc observations that didn’t support their thesis.
And as I have said above; it is those “charlatans in industry” who support that entire gravy train with their evil profit tax dollars.
But you are not alone or a new phenomenon; people who swill at the public trough are always the first to complain about their conditions.
Perhaps if you paid for your opinions out of your own pocket; you might see things a bit more realistically.

George, can I suggest you take your sarcasm detector in for a tune up?
I am one of those “charlatans” in industry too …

Owen says:
May 14, 2010 at 2:20 pm
This comment is for Anthony Watts. You do a disservice to the general public by taking a study reviewed and accepted by Science, one of the more rigorous journals to pass review, and treat it like it is a bit of lunacy….
___________________________________________________________________________
I suggest you read Don Keiller comment.
May 14, 2010 at 2:35 am
“Ah an update of the old (and discredited) “progressive nitrogen limitation” hypothesis. This suggested that “limitations in the supply of nitrogen needed to support increased plant growth should over time reduce or eliminate any effect of atmospheric CO2 concentration on net primary productivity.”
Now that hypothesis has been debunked they seamlessly move on to “food quality” fears. Small reductions in %nitrogen under elevated CO2 have been noted for years. The key problem with this paper is that it reports results on the non-crop plant (Arabidopsis) and wheat- the latter is known to exhibit this %nitrogen reduction effect.
Thus, major crop species studied by Jablonski, L.M., Wang, X. and Curtis, P.S. 2002. Plant reproduction under elevated CO2 conditions: a meta-analysis of reports on 79 crop and wild species. New Phytologist 156: 9-26. showed that rice, soybean, barley, wheat and maize) were considerably more productive when exposed to elevated concentrations of atmospheric CO2, while only two of them (barley and wheat) exhibited (small) decreases in seed nitrogen content under such conditions.
To put these % seed Nitrogen reductions in perspective- according to the most recent publication of The National Academies Press – Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrates, Fiber, Fat, Protein and Amino Acids (2002) – the Recommended Dietary Allowance for both men and women is 0.80 g of protein per kg of body weight, which for the average (75 kg) man amounts to 60 g protein per day. Hence, for the average Westerner, comsuming a typical Western diet, instead of having 2.72 times as much protein as they require each day, they would have only 2.67 times as much protein….”
If this is an example of “one of the more rigorous journals” then science is in very bad shape. This is nothing but recycling an old study and removing the positive aspects so it can be used to scare Joe Q. Public just in time to get the latest “cap and Trade passed.
I guess “Science” just joined the ranks of the “National Enquirer” except the “Enquirer” is more honest.

The lack of Nitrogen resulting from the doubling of CO2 cannot be coming from the atmsophere, as simple displacement should be occuring. Mine Safety teaches that it is Oxygen that gets displaced, but says nothing about Nitrogen. I will assume Nitrogen instead of Oxygen for sake of argument.
Reducing 78% N2 to 77.6% N2 is a decrease of 4.7 x 1oE8 %. Not even worth considering.
The soil is a different matter. Rotation of crops should cover the problem.
Other factors need to be considered, like how fast is a crop produced with doubled C02, and how quickly the soil must be rotated out for a season.

rbateman says:
May 14, 2010 at 3:42 pm
“…..The soil is a different matter. Rotation of crops should cover the problem.
Other factors need to be considered, like how fast is a crop produced with doubled C02, and how quickly the soil must be rotated out for a season.”
________________________________________________________________
No need to “rotate it out for a season just plant legumes such as beans, peas, soybeans, clover…. most are cool season plants to begin with. Since the CO2 makes plants grow and mature faster it means the second winter cover crop can be planted earlier, allowing more time for the plants to fix N2. If neededthe cover crop can be tilled under as “green manure”

The paper makes the claim that increased CO2 levels block the assimilation of nitrogen from nitrates in the soil. It is not a case of depletion of nutrients in the soil or of less N2 in the atmosphere. It is a biochemical assimilation mechanism that is affected.

Somebody needs a “grant application” refresher course, this argument seems rather weak. It has CO2, and a scary scenario, but just seems to be lacking something….
I don’t recall seeing the word “catastrophic”, that might help?

A wealth of information about CO2 concentration and nitrogen activity can be found here.
In one peer reviewed article from 2005 it was found that in durum wheat the nitrogen level in the leaves decreased with higher CO2 but at the same time the nitrogen level in the stems and seeds increased. Both biomass and grain yields increased under all nutrient and water regimes where CO2 was higher. This agrees with article which is the subject of this post. The authors measured the leaf nitrogen content and found it lower with increased CO2. However, they failed (purposely?) to grow the plants to maturity and measure the nitrogen content in the seed. It appears that the plants in the higher CO2 regime are able to use less nitrogen to generate more leaf mass and then deposit the excess nitrogen in the seeds where it will be of benefit to the next generation.

Atmospheric CO2 and Syrian Wheat Production
——————————————————————————–
Reference
Kaddour, A.A. and Fuller, M.P. 2004. The effect of elevated CO2 and drought on the vegetative growth and development of durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) cultivars. Cereal Research Communications 32: 225-232.
What was done
The authors grew three commercial cultivars of durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) registered in Syria (Cham 1, Cham 3 and Cham 5) from seed in 10-liter pots in different compartments of a phytotron, half of which compartments were maintained at an atmospheric CO2 concentration of approximately 400 ppm and half of which were maintained at a concentration of approximately 1000 ppm. Half of each of these treatments were further subdivided into two soil water treatments: well-watered, where available water content (AWC) was replenished to 90% of full capacity when it had dropped to 60%, and water-stressed, where AWC was replenished to 70% of full capacity when it had dropped to 45%.
What was learned
Averaged over the three cultivars, the extra 600 ppm of CO2 supplied to the CO2-enriched compartments led to total plant biomass increases of 62% in the well-watered treatment and 60% in the water-stressed treatment. Also of interest was the fact that the extra CO2 led to increases in the nitrogen concentrations of stems and ears. In the case of ears, nitrogen concentration was increased by 22% in the well-watered plants and by 16% in the water-stressed plants.
What it means
“These results,” according to Kaddour and Fuller, “have important implications for the production of durum wheat in the future.” They state, for example, that “yields can be expected to rise as atmospheric CO2 levels rise,” and that “this increase in yield can be expected under both water restricted and well irrigated conditions.” Hence, as they continue, “where water availability (irrigation) is a prime limiting economic resource, it can be distributed more effectively under higher CO2 conditions,” and “for countries such as Syria where average national production is well below the physiological maximum due largely to drought stress, the predicted rise in atmospheric CO2 could have a positive effect on production.”

The UC Davis study of wheat and mustard going only so far as nitrogen content of the leaves is borderline fraud if you ask me. This whole freaking AGW movement is replete with fraud. Heads need to roll. Lots of them from both academia and governments and media. Sorry to be so crude and angry but this stunt from UC Davis really chafed my hide after just a little bit of investigation of the prior art revealed its unscrupulous nature.

Good info here:
Wheat Production in Stressed Environments
The page the link goes to has a nice table on it with not just leaf nitrogen content but the grain as well in various conditions of nitrogen deficiency, heat stress, and CO2 concentrations. In normal nitrogenous soil and with no heat stress the protein content of the grain increased slightly with a doubling of CO2 in all three tested strains but more importantly the total dry weight of the grain increased by large amounts with increased CO2 under ALL regimes including nitrogen deprivation and heat stress. The plain fact of the matter is that total yield of grain and protein increased in all regimes where CO2 concentration was doubled and it increased by a huge amount under normal conditions. There is more info in the pages before and after the one I linked.

To re-formulate my previous comment: are we talking about the nutritional value of the fruit or the root, the germ or the bran, the berry or the bramble? Some spit out their watermelon seeds, some don’t, some skin their potatoes, some don’t, there are browsers and grazers, sapsuckers and termites, bark beetles and honey bees, aphids and elephants. If you are going to do nutrition, be specific.

There should be a campaign to inform Lisa Jackson at the EPA that co2 is not a pollutant. Yes, she has said it is.

@moderators
I moderated a little differently than you guys but I think my way resulted in a lot fewer comments. It also resulted in a lot less time spent moderating. The big difference is I required registration to post a comment. Creating an account and logging in likely discouraged a lot of casual one-time commenters. Then I had the mode enabled where the first comment from any new user automatically landed in the moderation queue and all subsequent comments until the first comment had been approved. If the first comment didn’t appear to be from a troublemaker (we had lots of them) I’d add his email address to the first level (I called it the gray list) spam filter so all his subsequent comments would land in the moderation queue. If after a time the commenter proved to be well behaved and well meaning I’d remove his email address from the gray list and he/she would then be free to comment at will without moderation. If the new user turned out to be a headache (quality, combativeness, rude, crude, or otherwise socially or intellectually unacceptable) I’d move his email address to the blacklist provided by the Akismet service (wordpress add-on) and then subsequent comments would land in the Akismet spam queue. As a result I could pretty quickly scan the Akismet list where legitimate comments stood out from the spam like a sore thumb and the regular WordPress moderation queue didn’t have an awful lot in it as most of the users were in the trusted (unmoderated) category.
For a few dedicated trolls who’d create new accounts under new names and behave long enough to get unmoderated I’d resort to using an IP block in the web server itself. There were only a few IP blocks accumulated over a few years. Our activity level was about a quarter million page views a month which is probably quite a bit short of WUWT these days. It took me about 15 minutes every day to do the recurring moderation chores using that scheme and most of the users saw their comments published immediately. What sometimes took a little more time was explaining to some users why their comments were all moderated while other users’ comments were not moderated.
[REPLY – Well, we who question (the extent of) AGW are sensitive to the heavy hand of censorship so prevalent on nearly all AGW blogs. So Anthony, in the spirit of Liberalism Classic, likes to let folks to have their say as far as reasonable. We will occasionally clip and snip but we like to keep that to a minimum. ~ Evan]

The reduction in protein is not a problem. UC Davis created the crude protein test used around the world to judge food stuffs value. You know, the one that allows the use of melamine to improve the test values. Just add more melamine, problem solved..
Food and livestock feeding scientists have been telling them that this is a poorly designed test for over 50 years but they insist that it is good enough and everyone must keep using it as it is approved by the USDA.

Merovign says:
May 14, 2010 at 10:50 am
“…..I’ve moved from the “I have questions” camp to the “what an obvious fraud” camp. There are so many confounding factors that attributing them all to simple errors just isn’t believable.
I may be nearing the end of my “always assume error rather than malfeasance” days.”
________________________________________________________________________
After being fired for refusing to falsify a Certificate of Analysis, I moved to the “follow the money” camp.

Donald Duck says:
May 14, 2010 at 11:11 am
It’s funny to see how people here feel like being scientists.
________________________________________________________________________
That is because many of the people here ARE scientists, and yes that is based on the statistics for the website. I did not save the link but it was shown within the month.