From the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers have some bad news for future farmers and eaters: As carbon dioxide levels rise this century, some grains and legumes will become significantly less nutritious than they are today.
The new findings are reported in the journal Nature. Eight institutions, from Australia, Israel, Japan and the United States, contributed to the analysis.
The researchers looked at multiple varieties of wheat, rice, field peas, soybeans, maize and sorghum grown in fields with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels like those expected in the middle of this century. (Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are currently approaching 400 parts per million, and are expected to rise to 550 ppm by 2050.)
The teams simulated high CO2 levels in open-air fields using a system called Free Air Concentration Enrichment (FACE), which pumps out, monitors and adjusts ground-level atmospheric CO2 to simulate future conditions. In this study, all other growing conditions (sunlight, soil, water, temperature) were the same for plants grown at high-CO2 and those used as controls.
The experiments revealed that the nutritional quality of a number of the world’s most important crop plants dropped in response to elevated CO2.
The study contributed “more than tenfold more data regarding both the zinc and iron content of the edible portions of crops grown under FACE conditions” than available from previous studies, the team wrote.
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“When we take all of the FACE experiments we’ve got around the world, we see that an awful lot of our key crops have lower concentrations of zinc and iron in them (at high CO2),” said University of Illinois plant biology and Institute for Genomic Biology professor Andrew Leakey, an author on the study. “And zinc and iron deficiency is a big global health problem already for at least 2 billion people.”
Zinc and iron went down significantly in wheat, rice, field peas and soybeans. Wheat and rice also saw notable declines in protein content at higher CO2.
“Across a diverse set of environments in a number of countries, we see this decrease in quality,” Leakey said.
Nutrients in sorghum and maize remained relatively stable at higher CO2 levels because these crops use a type of photosynthesis, called C4, which already concentrates carbon dioxide in their leaves, Leakey said.
“C4 is sort of a fuel-injected photosynthesis that maize and sorghum and millet have,” he said. “Our previous work here at Illinois has shown that their photosynthesis rates are not stimulated by being at elevated CO2. They already have high CO2 inside their leaves.”
More research is needed to determine how crops grown in developing regions of the world will respond to higher atmospheric CO2, Leakey said.
“It’s important that we start to do these experiments in tropical climates with tropical soils, because that’s just a terrible gap in our knowledge, given that that’s where food security is already the biggest issue,” he said.
The collaboration included researchers from Harvard University (which led the effort); Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Beer Sheva, Israel; the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; the University of California, Davis; the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service; the National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences in Ibaraki, Japan; the University of Melbourne, Australia; the University of Arizona; the University of Pennsylvania; and The Nature Conservancy, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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CO2 has nothing to do with it. The soil chemistry and micro and micro minerals can be altered, and unless they are replaced by organic fertilizers and regular soil tests, it will affect crops and production and nutrition content. Super phosphate should never have been used in Australia it is a quick fix fertilizer, and gradually kills off micro organism in the soil, they need to be kept active as they allow the plants to digest soil nutrients and minerals. Feed the soil not the plant is the message. Without really good soils and moisture holding organic material, yes you deplete the nutrition in plants and produce, including pasture.
The importance of the minerals is not in the crops, nor in the grain that is harvested, but in the portions of the minerals that enter the food chain.
Most seeds and grains are subject to industrial processing that removes the mineral anyway, so the research may not at all indicate a reduction of minerals in the food chain.
And as for iron a substantial percentage of the world’s population have too little iron in their diets but mainly because of food processing that removes the iron from the food.
,
gymnosperm said @ur momisugly May 7, 2014 at 8:54 pm
There’s not much in the way of constants in field experiments with crops. Everything varies, from day to day and season to season. Long-term field trials (think decades) often enough contradict the results of a single season. Something as simple as amount of water reaching the crop (and note that water is the single biggest crop-limiting factor) can make huge differences. Even if the amount of H2O is the same, rainwater (dilute carbonic acid that dissolves minerals from the soil particles) is different to irrigation water from a dam, or well.
Sunlight isn’t constant. Diffuse sunlight increases yields compared to sunlight unfiltered by clouds. Soil isn’t constant which is why we sow out in blocks laid out using the method called Latin square.
Most field experiments are designed to sell you something (usually fertiliser), but in this case I suspect they are selling bullsh!t. And that amounts to the same thing, I guess 🙂
bushbunny said @ur momisugly May 7, 2014 at 9:34 pm
Bushbunny, you exaggerate. Superphosphate enables the kick-start to the soil biology you need to commence growing European-adapted crops with the aid of European earthworms following eucalypt bushland.
Excessive superphosphate use doesn’t deplete nutrients. Very little of the P is used by the crop, the rest being inactivated by iron. Most organic farming in Australia consists in mining the P residues left from years of annual topdressing with super by stimulating the soil biology. They weren’t “killed off” by super so much as never fed their favourite foods (protein).
In a large number of field trials (potatoes, onions, broccoli, peas) on working farms in Tasmania back in the late 80s/early 90s, the best yields were grown on a 50/50 mix of organic and artificial fertilisers.
I shall continue to eat these foods.
http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf
This is the reason why.
http://www.dietdoctor.com/what-happens-if-you-eat-5800-calories-daily-on-an-lchf-diet
QED
Mark Bofill says:
May 7, 2014 at 7:26 pm
Well, that sucks. Is it a net loss, looking at yield increases?
===============================================
Mark perhaps you should read the comments more. In all circumstances the peer reviewed science shows a net gain. The reduced nutrient density, per gram of bio life, is still a net gain for the world. IE, plus 20% bio-life, reduction in SOME circumstances of 12% of some nutrients, you still have more nutrients, just a little less dense, plus food benefits consist of more then nutrients. It is a huge net gain, but take the quoted study, as an example of many which contradicts the article.
There is no need for vitamins, like many things the details within the literature from numerous other studies are the opposite of what the disaster, give me more research money folks say…
“Averaged across the three plant parts and both soil N levels, the CO2-induced changes in micronutrient concentrations within the wheat plants were: -12.4% (Fe), +20.9% (Mn), +9.0% (Zn) and +20.1% (Cu).
What it means
For three of the four micronutrients investigated in this study, atmospheric CO2 enrichment led to concentration increases, reminiscent of the findings of Lieffering et al. (2004), who observed CO2-induced increases in the concentrations of six out of six micronutrients (Zn, Mn, Cu, B, Mo, plus Fe) in a study of rice grains
You see Mark, this is a small example contained within the NIPCC report, that Mosher said was conducted by a bunch of clowns, without his treasured statistics. His arrogance precludes him from reading about 3000 more paragraphs like this, showing real world studies that show the immense benefits of CO2. BTW, you should not skip Jimbo’s comments among others, which are also on the money.
For the third time, here is a link..
http://www.co2science.org/subject/n/nutrition.php
Mark I think you said you were fairly new to this. Please read the posts. You will almost always learn as much or more from a study of them. (You just need to keep your filters on.)
“Wheat and rice also saw notable declines in protein content at higher CO2.”
If nitrogen fertilizer usage per unit area is kept constant and not adjusted (or if no fertilizer is used under luddite ideology), what decreases yield tends to result in an increased percentage protein in crops, like one experiment found when adding ozone (toxic to plants at ground level). Meanwhile, what increases yield (elevated CO2 for instance) tends to result in a decreased percentage protein in crops under those conditions.
Should farmers therefore try to decrease yields? Hardly.
Actual farmers, about results rather than trying to mislead the public, would be more likely to adjust fertilizer usage appropriately. (Of course, the average American is not remotely short on protein intake anyway, while subsidence farmers at the brink of starvation would be better off with more yield).
Notice the entire semi-lengthy article was careful to never even once mention the enormous tens of percent increase in yield and in water usage efficiency which occurs with a large increase in CO2 (very illustrated at co2science.org ).
Pompous, I will not argue this point, but the mineral that was most deficient in Australian soils besides phosphate, is lime. That was learned back in the late 1800s. Unfortunately with modern soil testing adding the wrong mineral that is thought to be the answer can unbalance the soil chemistry. One can add rock phosphate provided you have a soil test to tell you what minerals are needed. And all soils are different, depending on where they are, ideally the balance should be 45% minerals, 25% water and air and 5% organic material. But if you don’t have enough organic material this will deprive the soil of water and air, and micro organisms.
Because plants can not absorb minerals directly. Certainly moo pooh(including chook and horse) has been proven to contain many good organisms than any chemical shit. (Excuse the expression mod)
It is interesting that many processed foods, like cereals, state high in iron, fibre, etc. Now some months ago Coles was selling American grapes, with a warning, they contained high something, we bi passed them. But my experience in American food and meat in Bermuda, was it was excellent. Great beef, milk, and apples. Mind you that was in 1969. But they hung their meat like in Britain. Mostano has done a lot of damage to seeds especially sellling the ‘terminator’ seed to third world countries. Any seed is infertile.
A shift away from farming would improve the health of those few humans who would be left alive, after the hyped crop failures due to higher CO2 levels.
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/vegetarians-have-smaller-brains.html#.U2sR3PldWSo
Cereals are not fit for human consumption.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2614780/How-FARMERS-fitter-athletes-Human-strength-speed-peaked-7-300-years-ago-declining-rapidly.html
I’m R1b1b2a1a2d & my youngest son is R1b1b2a1a2d3* 2.4% of my DNA is Neanderthal.
3.0% of the DNA of my son is Neanderthal.
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/the-story-of-r1b-its-complicated.html
It may be of interest to you, that Neanderthals ate mainly flesh, they had larger brains than us, because of the meat they consumed. You should turn yourself in for further testing, so far they have found no DNA in present humans to connect to the Neanderthal genus. They have with chimpanzees though, and 30% of their diet is meat too, or protein, they kill other primates, mainly their babies, poor sods.
Even if those findings were true they should notice that plants, as any other species, except certain researchers, has the capability of adaptation…
It’s time to leave these rooms of scientific phantasies!
tteclod says:
Also, he seems to differentiate between photosynthesis mechanisms. This looks like a study for a plant biologist and ag engineer to critique.
Also, what carbon-dioxide concentration did he achieve? How was the concentration measured? How was the CO2 introduced? Was the elevated CO2 level maintained throughout the daily photosynthesis cycle, or did it change according to time of day? How did they handle weather and winds in an open field. Did they measure the natural CO2 level in the region before, during, and after the experiment and compare to controls? What species of crops did they use? Did they make any comparison of nutritional values to nearby crops harvested by others?
Other obvious questions would be if they switched around which areas were “enriched” with CO2. Thus addressing any possible issue of soil, mycorrhiza, etc differences. Another issue would be how the carbon dioxide was produced. If through combustion there is virtually always some unburned fuel released. Plenty of plant species use airborne organic molecules to “communicate”. Which can have effects at very low concentrations.
ladylifegrows says:
Rubisco is the name of the main plant protein that turns CO2 + H2O into sugar and oxygen. With higher CO2, the plant will need less of this protein and minerals associated with it. That will give the plant freedom to produce other nutrients in increased concentration and variety. Logically, this should mean a much more health-promoting food, but it would take sophisticated research for find out for sure or to quantify it.
Maybe it will make the plant “healthier” from the plant’s POV. Which includes being less attractive to getting eaten by any animal 🙂 Without humans around any crop species would quite rapidly either go extinct or evolve into something with less “nutrients” and more “toxins”.
We have heard about Peak Oil, now it appears we have reached Peak Stupidity. What these trials demonstrate is that CO2 increases yields, and like most public researchers who are clueless about crop nutrition they have failed to budget for this increased yield by adding the extra nutrients required for this growth.
Someone mentioned the trials at Horsham a few years back where they found lower protein in wheat in an elevated CO2 environment. This is a straight lime relationship which relies on Nitrogen being available to keep protein levels up when grain yield increases, and in these trials they just left the same N levels for all plots irrespective of their yield. Consequently, protein levels varied dramatically (who would have thought?)..
Any agronomist worth his or her salt will budget for a particular yield (in tonnes/ha or bushelsacre in the US) prior to the commencement of the season, and ensure available nutrients are matched to the growth of the crop as the season progresses. If extra moisture arrives and yields look to be somewhat better, they will add the required nutrients to compensate for this. This process however usually eludes public researchers as they are generally ignorant of crop nutrition as well as crop protection (weeds, insects disease, etc.) when compared to commercial crop producers.
Consequently, this report is more about poor trial methodology and lack of agronomic skill than it is of any particular consequence relating to CO2
Latitude says:
I wouldn’t call a 5% reduction in zinc/iron/protein “significant”……unless I had some agenda
You’d also need to know the level of “normal” variation.
There is also the problem that since the chemistry of testing is often very different from that of the human (plus bacteria symbiotes) digestive system it’s possible to detect “nutrients” in foods which have low “bioavailability”.
So “less” can literally be “more” in a practical sense.
When it comes to proteins what actually tends to matter nutritionally speaking are the amino acid ratios. Plant proteins tend to have a much “poorer” ratio than those from animals anyway. Simply because of the metabolic differences between plants and mammals.
If you have a zinc deficiency then animal food is a better source than vegetables.
http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/zinc.php
And as for Iron, seafood and liver top the list
http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/food-sources-of-iron.php
More drivel from the kingdom of alarmist science. Fifty years ago I did research into the trace metal needs of crops, including cereals, and both zinc and iron deficiencies were common in Africa where I worked due to the particular types of soils. The solution was simple – either add the fertiliser or use a crop spray (add it to the fungicides). Unless one is on an all cereal diet low levels in cereals is not a problem as it is the iron and zinc levels in the total diet that counts and one can get all one needs from 12 grams of oysters or normal consumption of red meat. In any case the problem for human health is excess intake of iron and for zinc the problem is often interference from a high uptake of copper from plumbing systems, copper pans etc. They say research means to look at the past studies and if these ‘scientists’ had done so they would have seen they were ‘researching’ a non problem but of course that was not the object of the ‘study’ – it was to produce another bit of alarmist propaganda during the build up to the UN boondoggle in Paris next year when the UN hopes to fill their money trough with our money.
What is this now? Last in the series of anomalies from the little ice age normals? They caused the last major famine in Europe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_famine_of_1866%E2%80%9368. No way that should be the taxpayers mission.
Henry Clark said @ur momisugly May 7, 2014 at 10:17 pm
Large areas of Australian wheat are sown without fertiliser. When the lakebeds in the outback dry up sufficiently, they are sown down to wheat. Most excellent wheat crops they are too. Not a fertiliser bag in sight. And they receive organic certification for the crop, so bringing a higher than normal market price. Luddites, indeed! Farmers are not Luddites!
bushbunny said @ur momisugly May 7, 2014 at 10:19 pm
But my dear bushbunny, you are arguing the point and not very well. Australian soils are not particularly deficient in phosphorus, no matter what you may believe. Undisturbed native soils are deficient in available phosphorus. Most of the P is locked-up in chemical bonding to iron, aluminium and calcium a process that can be reversed by stimulating the soil biota as I wrote before.
A friend did some labelled P analyses of uptake by wheat in the Mallee some decades ago. The Mallee soils are arguably the most P-deficient in Australia. He discovered two things. Most important was that the wheat was obtaining P from up to 3 metres below the soil surface, not merely exoloiting the top 100 mm as is usually supposed. The second was that there was sufficient P for several millennia of cropping.
Perhaps you should read this:
http://thepompousgit.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/154/
Lewis P Buckingham sais @ur momisugly May 8, 2014 at 12:28 am
All too true. And we are not going to fix that problem with cereals. Beans may have role in this, but what we really need is more animal/fish flesh where it’s needed. And that is more of a political problem than one of how to grow animals and fish.
It is not that they have less Zinc and Iron, It is that they produce more carbohydrates. This is nothing new. Nothing unexpected.
Also, I would like to know if the soil had enough zinc and iron to support faster growth, and if the plants can absorb more of those minerals provided the soil is fertilized with those minerals.
Anyway, classic example of torturing data to make things look bad. More CO2 means that cereals produce more sugars, because cereals store the excess of energy in form of sugars, reducing the percentage of everything else. Nothing we did not know. My bet is that the amount of fats are also reduced, but that has been conveniently kept in the dark.
@ur momisugly urederra
You’d be hard-pressed to find a soil deficient in iron! Availability is a different matter and why in horticulture we apply chelated iron to plants showing deficiency. Zinc is another matter and levels vary considerably between the old, weathered soils like Australia’s and recent volcanic soils. About 50% of the world’s agricultural soils are considered deficient. Easily remedied with foliar applications of either zinc salts, or as chelates.
Interesting question about fats. I wonder if Craig Idso knows the answer.
Those trees of the Carboniferous, they must have been starving.