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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Eat cows, pigs and chickens and this stuff won’t be a problem. Besides…the strains of wheat and other things we are eating right now probably didn’t exist 50 years ago. In 50 years there will be new strains that work well in the current climate.
Having a static view of things handicaps your thinking.
Perry, I hold a degree in palaeoanthropology, and it is very interesting. Neanderthals never existed in Africa, they evolved to live in a cold climate (like Inuits) Other than the Inuits, whose body mass is thicker and fat to sustain cold temperatures, they did eat mainly meat and blubber, like the Neanderthals, very few carbohydrates. The metabolism was (maybe not now being introduced to western diets) had evolved to what food they could hunt and other than a soup made from seal’s stomachs and a handful of berries occasionally, their metabolism was different from the majority of humans that depend on carbohydrates for energy and Blood glucose levels.
Most of the Neanderthal genus died out eventually, around 39,000 years ago, maybe some interbred with modern humans that came from Africa, but the genetic link would now be very thin on the ground 30,000 years ago. They were distinctive with heavy brow bridges, and dentitian.
But our present genus, Homo sapien sapien, has molars that were used to ground cereals or other hard stuff. But Neanderthals did have bigger brains, (on average) and this is thought to relate to their diet of mainly meat. There was one skeleton found of a girl in Spain, that showed she maintained some Neanderthal genes as well as modern humans. 29,000 years ago.
Neanderthals were not stupid, lumbering, hairy creatures that are often stereotype, they were very physically strong, intelligent and great hunters. But maybe they just died out. Or as some have suggested they moved from Southern Europe up North. This has been questioned as further North would have been very glacial. They may have died out because the new modern genus of Homo just competed with better tools the prey they were before hunting. If one lived today, shaved him, and put him in a suit or modern clothes, he might pass as boxer or wrestler.
Our physical appearance is modified to suit the environment we live in. It only takes 5,000 years to adapt physically too.
Oh Perry, the way they found this out was they examined ancient pooh. At least they didn’t need a freezer to keep their food fresh. LOL.
The crop yields increased with CO2, as starch is produced from H20 and CO2. The other nutrients stayed the same, so their proportion decreased. The solution is simple, reduce yield by breeding backwards, or increase fertilizers.
OK, so the Neanderthals passed on about 39,000 years ago.
Could they ‘survive” in our cultural memories as the trolls, giants, ogres, and cyclops of many thousands of legends?
After all, it is clear that “dragons” look remarkably like the dinosaur fossils people have found worldwide …
Jimbo says: May 7, 2014 at 3:46 pm
@ur momisuglyAbstract
Will photosynthesis of maize (Zea mays) in the US Corn Belt increase in future [CO2] rich atmospheres? An analysis of diurnal courses of CO2 uptake under free-air concentration enrichment (FACE)
…….FACE technology allows experimental treatments to be imposed upon a complete soil–plant–atmosphere continuum with none of the effects of experimental enclosures on plant microclimate. Crop performance was compared at ambient [CO2] (354 μ mol mol−1) and the elevated [CO2] (549 μmol mol−1) predicted for 2050.@ur momisugly
I spotted this odd figure – the ambient CO2 level is 354 μ mol mol−1. Unless I am very much mistaken (always possible) that means 354 ppm. Yet this is in the US Corn Belt, where the fields are surrounded by highways with thousands of cars belching out CO2. And in Hawaii, where the accepted measuring centre is, and is surrounded by thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean, with only one large town nearby (Honolulu) the level is supposedly about 398 ppm.
Something is fishy here.
BTW, I looked at the Ohio State Food Guidelines for Zinc. Says you get the best input for zonc from eating meats, dairy, eggs etc. Reminds me of that good TV advert @ur momisuglyFeed the man meat@ur momisugly.
Perry interesting comments, but the ogres, giants, trolls etc., were created in human minds, in relatively modern times, i.e., legends. No doubt deformed people were isolated. But it is there behavior that gave them a bad name. They were certainly members from the Homo sapien genus. Whether they could interbreed with modern humans is very doubtful I think, unless found as children? Not because they were different physically, but – most probably did not belong to a clan. And behavior, there is no evidence that modern sapiens fought with them. Physically I would think modern humans might be at a disadvantage. Life was hard, and no doubt infant mortality high. I think they bred out. It happens.
They didn’t live long, Perry. And they had to group to trap and kill megafauna. They were also prey to some predatory animals. Cave bears particularly, and sabre toothed tigers in some places. But they survived for thousands of years, longer than modern humans have been around, that is an achievement in itself.
David A says: @ur momisuglyWhat was learned The extra 250 ppm of atmospheric CO2 decreased the leaf, stem and root concentrations of …@ur momisugly
@ur momisuglyWho eats the leaves, stems and roots of wheat? Apart from ‘global warming’ enthralled juice bar freaks that is?@ur momisugly
Cows do. And then we eat the cows. So we do.
Remember Ambrose Bierce’s definition of edible (The Devil’s Dictionary):
Edible, adj. Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
No dragons appear in stone age art in Europe. But the dragon was a marshal symbol in British history. Around 5th – 6th century AD. And in legends.
did u guys see this, an unfunded study using way more data says the quality does drop:
http://is.gd/HOkP5a
Given this new “study” in NATURE and that the atmospheric CO2 concentration in the Cretaceous Age was 4 times higher than today, finally we can understand at last, why the Dinosaurs were such weeny wimps and became extinct at the end of this era: The poor beasts suffered under severe zinc and iron shortage and CO2 induced malnutrition… 😉
I suggest this “ingenious” new and ground-breaking Dinosaur-Extinction theory by our Climate Alarmist Friends could be a nice subject for a funny cartoon by Josh… 🙂
Phil. says:
I didn’t say convert the entire diet of the 2 Billion people to meat. I said feed the increased yield – the extra crops that magical CO2 provides – to animals for meat. Corn, for example, makes great food for meat animals, either as a substantial component of their diet or as a supplement to the grass and other inedible (to us) things they eat.
Do that, and the underfed 2 Billion people – those poor souls that the warmists do not care about apart from their utility in adding emotional impact to false arguments – get the same calories from plants as before, plus some additional calories, protein, zinc, iron, and wholesome good taste from meat.
JJ
Skeptick says:
May 8, 2014 at 11:43 pm
did u guys see this, an unfunded study using way more data says the quality does drop:
===
by 8%….but they didn’t qualify that against how many fewer people will starve to death
We have been breeding these crop plants for hundreds of years to perform better at lower levels of CO2….it’s just common sense that they would grow faster when CO2 levels rise
But faster growth and more hydration also means a lower concentration of minerals, etc
…and that’s what they are talking about
“”This study shows that eCO2 reduces the overall mineral concentrations””
bushbunny, do all paleo-anthropologists refer to homo sapiens sapiens as homo sapien sapien?
If you took the ‘s’ off ‘Inuits’ and stuck it on sapien you’d have a wise man and an Arctic people!
Recipe for our dismal future:
Cook one cup Fe, Zn deficient rice in a cast iron pot. Serve in a galvanized bowl.
(Future not really so dismal as some would have us believe.)
There is medical evidence that certain regions have low iodine, and suffer from swollen thyroids.
Goitres. Mercury is a worry too, if you eat a lot of certain fish species. But it was amazing one day when brown rice was the in thing, a friend served it to some Japanese friends, and they replied only peasants eat brown rice, we don’t. So it is the soils that are deficient in certain minerals, but CO2 is not the problem. If they repeat sowings of the same crop every year, without providing suitable organic minerals or fertilizers, the soil depletes. And disease can be transfered to the new crop. Unfortunate subsistence farmers have not the choice. And modern cropping avoids mono cropping. Certain plants leach certain minerals more than others. And they should rotate crops. Wheat and tobacco, leach soils badly. And if one persists in growing them year and year out, obviously their nutritional value, will deplete too.
JJ says: May 9, 2014 at 5:54 am
“Phil. says:
The only problem with that is that to get the same caloric value from the meat you’d have to grow about 10X more crops.”
“Caloric value” is piffle. You don’t need to eat carbohydrates – you need proteins and fats. Carbohydrates are only useful for the vitamins they contain not readily available in sufficient quantities in meat.
I like this quotation:
“What the diet of the Far North illustrates, says Harold Draper, a biochemist and expert in Eskimo nutrition, is that there are no essential foods—only essential nutrients. And humans can get those nutrients from diverse and eye-opening sources.”
It comes from:
http://discovermagazine.com/2004/oct/inuit-paradox – a well recommended (by me) article. Though I note, buried on page four, this:
“The very well-being of the northern food chain is coming under threat from global warming, land development, and industrial pollutants in the marine environment. “I’m a pragmatist,” says Cochran, whose organization is involved in pollution monitoring and disseminating food-safety information to native villages. “Global warming we don’t have control over. But we can, for example, do cleanups of military sites in Alaska or of communication cables leaching lead into fish-spawning areas.”
Can’t get away from that accursed “Global Warming”, can we.
Dudley Horscroft said @ur momisugly May 10, 2014 at 1:32 am
Not in the eighteenth century it wasn’t 😉
A nice blog but in this time not much critique.
I write my own blog before notice this. About same study and with some critique.
http://roskasaitti.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/koyhdyttaako-hiilidioksidi-ravintomme/
There is short abstract in english in comment section and most of links are to english pages. I suppose all are not familiar with Finnish. Nor translator programs.
For over a hundred million years , the biggest creatures and plants on earth thrived when the co2 levels were 10-20 x that of today.
When you are big as a house you need a lot of nutrition.
Meat protein does provide energy and muscle growth. But with most people it is slower to provide energy. Carbohydrates are important to us too being quicker to be converted into blood glucose. Feed the man meat, yes my experience in hospitality was that men liked larger meat quantities more than women, they have more muscle (well generally) Inuits and Neanderthals had metabolisms designed to eat mainly protein and fat.
Dilution.