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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Bread dough prepared with flour grown in a future climate with elevated atmospheric CO2 may not rise properly, claims Dr Fitzgerald, a senior Australian research scientist with the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald;
On the right is a loaf made from grain grown in today’s climate conditions. On the left is a loaf made from grain that sprouted in concentrations of carbon dioxide that are expected by mid-century if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t reduced significantly.
So this is 2050 bread. It was baked at the Australian Grains Free Air COā Enrichment facility (AgFace) in Victoria by a research group studying the effect elevated carbon dioxide will have on crops such as wheat, lentils, canola and field pea.
AgFace leader Glenn Fitzgerald said the effect of high carbon dioxide on grains is complex. On the one hand, it makes plants such as wheat and canola grow faster and produce greater yields but, on the other hand, they contain less protein. Elevated carbon dioxide also alters the ratio of different types of proteins in wheat, which, in the case of bread, effects the elasticity of dough and how well a loaf rises.
“We don’t understand completely why that’s the case,” said Dr Fitzgerald, a senior research scientist with the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources.
I have hand prepared fresh bread at least twice a week, for the last 5 years. There are so many variables which can influence bread dough. The air temperature is the obvious variable, but bread is also very sensitive to the amount of water, the temperature of the water, the amount of salt and shortening or fat, how long you mix the dough, the type of bowl it is mixed in (metal bowls conduct heat, which tends to cool the dough below optimum temperature), the quality of the yeast, the age of the yeast, what soap you used to wash your hands (bread yeast hates dish washing detergent – even a trace can badly affect yeast growth), the humidity of the air (flour absorbs a lot of water, humidity affects how much water you have to add to achieve the optimum consistency), whether one loaf caught more of a breeze than the other loaf while the bread dough was rising, the list goes on.
To ignore all of this, and conclude that CO2 shrunk the slightly stunted loaf, in my opinion seems utterly absurd, even for climate science.
Not a problem since the relentless scolding press says that we shouldn’t eat wheat, or rice, or soybeans, or any kind of meat, or…
If only these greenie warmists would do as they espouse – and starve themselves to death. That would help the overpopulation crybaby position greatly.
From the linked article, “For instance, yields increase by about 25 per cent, on average, under elevated carbon dioxide.”
So we can expect 25% more bread that is slightly less fluffy. Sounds like a win-win situation, not a catastrophe.
I have made my own sour dough bread for over ten years and I confirm what Eric Worrall says. There are many variables. Making two loafs like this is totally unscientific. It’s a good as going fishing with a grain of normal corn and a grain of CO2 enriched corn and weighing the fish you catch. You catch two fish and then publish: OMG in 2050 we’ll only be able to catch smaller fish.
This is science-speak for “we have no idea but we are supposed to be scientists so we can’t admit that”.
Also looking at the photo in the article, the right hand loaf looks like it was basted with something and the LH is slightly fallen and caved in. This can’t be the result of rising less, it indicates that it rose higher but got a bump as it was transferred to the oven.
This looks more like the Nye and Gore faked greenhouse experiment that was frigged to get the “right” result.
http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/h/s/h/d/9/image.related.articleLeadwide.620×349.ghshcq.png/1434950061165.jpg
Actually, the loaves look like Nye and Gore.
Also, the loaf on the right has a glossy top, as if someone put some butter or egg white on it to give it a sheen. That could’ve affected the rise as well. Jeez.
Global warming will also make things less shiny. The loaf on the left is a dull global warming loaf. /s
Interesting… I, too, make my own bread… Wonder if skeptics are more DIY types with more real experience….
I have done more experimental loves than most as a friend has gluten issues, the spouse doesn’t like heavy rich breads, and I can’t have corn… So things like millet four in corn bread recipies instead of corn, and bread with zero glutin (the protein they claim is the issue).
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/bread-potato-flour-millet-amaranth/ has my method and a recipe that worked well.
I usually make a dozen or so jars of identical ingredients in one sitting, then just add yeast and liquid at baking time. The loaf to loaf variation is far larger than in that picture.
Furthermore, the loaf to the right looks egg washed (glossy finish) that would stiffen the top and slightly darker. The one on the left looks fallen and light in color like cooked at lower temperature. That fallen look happens to me if the rise is too cold and takes too long. I have forgotten to keep a loaf warm, had it rise all day, and then at bake fall to totally flat with the pan top.
The rise must be warm to work right. I try for 105 F but the ban on incadescent bulbs makes a DIY warming box a problem, and new electric ovens block less than 175 F out of health scares. So I pulse the oven every so often trying to keep a steady temp. Works well until a Honey Do request interrupts attentiveness…
Bread flour varies a lot in protein and I’ve found using LESS makes a softer nicer crumb for toast. I now blend about 1.5 oz of tapioca flour or potato starch per 7 ounce of wheat to get that softer texture. Furthermore, wheat free bread made with rice flour and such works with just a bit of xantham gum as binder (plus a few other tricks ).
IMHO the article claiming CO2 caused the difference is flat out bogus. The protein may be lower, but that isn’t the problem.
This is an absurd assertion. Ludicrous…
Your taxes, hard at work.
Yep. I’m sure somebody got paid a lot of “dough” for this study….(sorry, lol – could not resist)
The same pun jumped into my head as well: “These guys are more concerned with raising dough than rising dough.”
Yep, typical of the CAGW catastrophists, their half-baked pretzel logic is a result of their loafing in pursuit of our hard-earned dough. It’s only a recipe for disaster for our civilization.
Their “science” is what we used to call “air bread” (from airheads, no doubt)…
That’s precisely why he should be unemployed. Stop any funding his department might be receiving as well.
This research amongst many other agricultural science research projects is financed by the Grains Research and Development Corporation[ Australiaās GRDC ] from which one half of itās research monies come from a levy on Australian farmers grain tonnage production plus the other matching half from the government.
The three GRDC regional research panels formed from well regarded Ag advisers and farmers in each major grain growing region are the arbiters of where, what and who gets our research funds.
http://www.grdc.com.au/About-Us/GRDC-Regional-Panels
Sure, it is absurd and ludicrous. It is a ridiculous assertion but it is wondrous never the less.
Now we hear that bread will not rise and beer is endangered. The alarmists have reached the stage of self-parody. They are damaging belief in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming by their stupid scare stories far more than realists armed with facts and laws of physics.
Agreed, John. Beyond insane. They made bread from the future. Do they have future atmosphere? Just nutso.
But let them carry on with this insanity. Maybe Greenwald’s report today about how the internet trolls are the intellegence services (at The Intercept, can’t link, on iPad, too much trouble) will convince some that the climate change messages are of the same ilk. The 2011 report is a remarkable document, and they are involved in climate change messaging as well. Also see what they have to say about “obedience” and “conformity.” Warn your kids and grandkids.
So bread won’t leaven?
Sounds like kosher science to me.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha…cough, splutter… Mmmmmwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! /sarc
But Fleischmann’s is a jewish name, isn’t it?
My sentiments exactly.
Hey, but matzo is very, very useful. Aside from not releasing that horrid global warming gas CO2 through the action of the yeast, it has many other beneficial characteristics. It never, ever goes stale. Matzo from last year or 10 years ago is every bit as fresh as matzo bought yesterday. Nothing eats it in general. It is thus fairly office scrounger proof against the person who works late and pillages the office desks to eat anything they find. It is useful as a shingle or Frisbee. There are some reports that if the Titanic had been carrying a sufficient load of it, they could have plugged the hole below the water line from the iceberg. So give some respect to the “bread of our affliction” and inflict it on somebody you dislike tomorrow.
Brilliant, you have also managed to explain why the latte-sippers dont want us to eat bread and the like, Yeast releases CO2 in HUGE quantities, DONT EAT BREAD!!
“It (matzo) never, ever goes stale.”
That’s because it’s pre-staled.
Good for making retaining walls too!
my first thought too. š
I’m another regular bread maker. Agree with all variables mentioned by others. I must say, I get consistently good rise here in AZ as compared to my winter breads in CO. We learn to adjust and adapt š
Ah, so many variables to consider, but it has to be CO2.
I’d like to see them duplicate the experiment. Only this time, make sure the baker doesn’t know which wheat is which so he can’t put his thumbs on the scales, so to speak.
Since the prevaricators/purveyors of such nonsense have recently enjoined us to eat insects, if we eat only the bugs which grow in our stock of wheat flour, will we still be on a gluten- free diet?
Let them eat cake.
Or Twinkies.
That is cake. (Theoretically.)
I stand corrected. (Theoretically. š
This is all Lavosh
Or tacos….
“At AgFace, experimental crops are grown in the open, surrounded by thin tubes that eject carbon dioxide into the air around the plants.”
Some scientists have discovered that CO2 fluctuates by a huge amount day to day / week to week / season to season.
http://co2.utah.edu/co2tutorial.php?site=7&id=1
I could change that graph and it’s comments 180 degrees and most people would take it as gospel truth as well.
āAt AgFace, experimental crops are grown in the open, surrounded by thin tubes that eject carbon dioxide into the air around the plants. We can do this under very natural conditions, as close as you can get to an environment that crops would see in a farmer’s field in the future,” he said.
[see the field photo] http://www.smh.com.au/cqstatic/ghsl3q/facejb2.JPG
“As close as you can get?” Nonsense. There’s no control whatsoever over the CO2 concentration at the stomata of the plants. The distribution pipes are not clearly visible. but it’s likely that the CO2 gets swept away by the slightest breeze before it can reach and enter the stomata.
If they’re using pure CO2 gas, it will drop the humidity, which could dry the leaf interior and cause the stomata to close, assuming any of the CO2 supply reaches them. (Humidified CO2 would result in condensation in the supply piping and uneven gas flow.)
This is the stupidest attempt at an experiment I’ve ever seen. It ignores, as you point out, all of the variables except CO2 and how puffy the loaf looks. The results should be normalized according to protein content in grams, yielding more total bread weight for higher CO2 concentrations. If more protein is required, more fertilizer can be applied to the crop. DUH.
“This is the stupidest attempt at an experiment Iāve ever seen.”
——————————————————————————-
Oh, then you’d love Bill Nye proving CO2 is a GHG.
This post is bad enough but…
I expected more from a man that calls himself “The Science Guy.”
“The stupidest attempt ever”
Well you would have to include agriculture and forestry researchers in every continent in that remark.
Perhaps an attempt to understand and gain a little knowledge on just what is being done in the almost unknown to the public, world of agricultural research, the scientific research that in the developed world has made food so cheap that it takes around 20% of the average wage / salary to feed a family compared to our mediaeval ancestors where the cost of food took about 80% of the income of an average.
The same agricultural research being so harshly criticised by so many is feeding all 7.2 billions of you and doing it in a way where hunger and starvation now only exists because of war and corruption.
Only 40 years ago was predicted that starvation would be the lot of billions on this planet as we ran out of food
Agricultural researchers and farmers are truly worthy of admiration, not the contempt shown by so many in these comments.
Don’t criticize agricultural researchers and farmers with your mouth full.
In the posted Horsham Victoria AGFACE experiments the required CO2 concentrations using sensors and computer control of the releasing jets and taking into account wind directions, wind speeds, temperatures, humidity or lack of, soil moisture or lack of particularly in Australia’s grain belt and etc across the ring during the months long growing season are held to within 13% of the requirements for the specific experimental levels of CO2 they are testing the growing crops under.
The rings are located in a standard planted field with the same fertilizer treatments and etc unless otherwise demanded experimentally , so that comparisons can be made between the FACE ring CO2 enhanced crops and standard atmosphere crops.
There have been a number of North American forestry experiments using sensor controlled long term CO2 releases very similar in concept to the internationally used ring type agricultural crop FACE system on growing trees to ascertain the effect of changing CO2 levels on forestry
So in 35 years, bakers would not figure out how to increase the amount of leavening (if in fact this prophesy were to come about)?
And so what if developing countries get 25% more wheat!?! Horrors!
Just to split hairs, a baker does not need to add more yeast, but just has to let the dough sit a little longer as the yeast population doubles about every hour, if kept warm. Can even just put the dry yeast into warm water with a little sugar, and then let it sit for an hour in a warm place, before putting in with flour.
What a coincidence! Bread dough will need more warmth, but there will BE more warmth!
Just add Sodium bicarbonate to the dough. Who uses yeast nowadays, anyway?
With increased CO2, just add less yeast. Although I would have thought it would rise too much, then we’d need a bubble pricker to reduce the CO2, More employment.
And you think they didn’t do that withe “normal” bread?
“Psychotropic medication use has risen dramatically over the last 12 years, despite growing concerns over pharmaceutical industry influence and their questionable contribution to improving the mental health of Australians, new research suggests. The first comprehensive analysis of long-term trends in Australian psychotropic prescribing since 1987 found a āstrikingā increase of 58% from 2000 to 2011.”
http://www.uq.edu.au/ami/concerns-over-rising-psychotropic-drug-use
“There are so many variables which can influence bread dough.”
Doesn’t anyone notice this, I feel like I am taking crazy pills…
Nicky Phillips seems to be quite the ‘science editor’. Two sample and she can draw conclusions. Then again it is climate science where model output is considered ‘data’.
Let’s see there are around 200+ western bread style bakeries in Chiang Mai using flour from all over the world. We are now in our”cool” season temperatures have dropped to a tad below 40 c and the bread is still rising.
The only “dough” we have to worry about are the salaries wasted on Nongs like Nicky.
Why didn’t they try to Adjust and Homogenize the ingredients?
“For instance”? Really? “They are trying”? Really?
By any standard of logic, a 25% increase in yield is HUGE, while a slightly more dense bread (even if the attribution is correct, which is doubtful) would be laughable by comparison .
One would think that the 25% yield increase would be the headline of the story, but no… the headliner and text body detracts and diverts attention of readers to the facts of little importance. Anything to keep people from learning that CO2 is merely plant food. What a brave new world we live in now. GK
But what about the poor little children breaking their teeth trying to eat that stone-hard global warming bread? Oh the humanity!
So can we not now map the overall trend in CO2 and temperature since the Minoan period by comparing the density of archeologically retrieved samples of bread?
I feel that multi-proxy analysis of bread samples (Panechronology?) could become a very profitable field of research.
All that we need to do, is erase the naughty MWP and submit our “research” to Nature.
Early breads were generally of the flat bread variety, which suggests that the planet was formerly cool and that CO2 levels were very low.
Whereas modern French sticks are very low density with cavernous holes, suggesting that global warming started in France in the mid-1800’s.
Interestingly, indian chapattis, rotis and parathas are very dense and flat, which goes to show that they are not responsible for global warming and should be given massive amounts of dosh by the western nations.
The study of circuses can also help us to build a paleochronology of the climate.
Those are the only two things that people ever really needed, bread and circuses.
Bread, circuses and warm weather. THREE things. Bread, circuses, warm weather and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope…
… and a toothbrush.
… and a towel.
THREE things. Bread, circuses, warm weather and an almost fanatical devotion to the popeā¦
AND the palpable Papal Bull…
Paris is coming. Stay tuned for the inevitable deluge of doom and gloom, and BS…. for example…
But though it rises in the yeast, it should be better bread.
(For the solar crowd. I can’t quite remember the rest. From Gelett Burgess, Purple Cow. Anyone know the rest? Life ate my copy.)
Just another example of a “scientist” prostituting himself for his government pimps. Utterly shallow BS.
He is a crusty, ill-bread loafer.
If your bread looks like Elephant Man’s brain you need to go back to baking school.
We should all be eating less bread anyhow, according to some nutritionists.
97% of nutritionists don’t have the foggiest idea what they are talking about.
Which is effectively a consensus.
Dieticians don’t have a problem though!
I’ll buy futures in baking soda.
No,you want to buy baking powder futures-not baking soda,double acting baking powder is the thing you want to invest in-doubtful that it would work for brad-but at least we could still make good bisquits.
And as you sit there darkly scheming to amass panic-speculative profits, mankind commits sodacide.
Or is it flat bread for flat trends, maybe?
Let’s see. LST is in a pause. Doesn’t matter how K15 diddles the SST, even he et al. can’t shake the LST pause. And it must be admitted that most of the baking is done on the LS, not the SS. So there is no global warming to expand the bread, you see. Therefore I further hypothesize that in a cooling phase, the bread will be eventually pass the tipping point and become concave.
Do we have a link to the metadata on that? We’ll have to apply an equipment and TOB (Time of Baking) adjustment, of course.
You have to think these things through. Model upcoming.
Even more scheming-I’ll just adjust amount and type of flour used,time for dough to rise,baking time/temp,publish a recipe-sell it to those who believe this horsepucky for only $9.95
Then, I’ll just market a new “special strain” of yeast that will make perfect loaves of bread in 2050 – just for those special snowflakes-and they will be able to get it in 3 pkg strips in the grocery store for only $19.95. I’ll even use the 1970’s green ecology flag on the packages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology_Flag
kZPLV5NqwnReG2ZEAaRWfo
The sad thing is there are a lot of idiots who would buy the “special” yeast that combats changes due to climate change.
More magical thinking from the climate kooks.
Even if this was true(it is not) It is sad the journalist assumes we couldn’t figure out a way to make bread rise with more co2. Or gid forbid discover an even better product.
The Gluten Scare will get people to stop eating bread, anyway.
“Elevated carbon dioxide also alters the ratio of different types of proteins in wheat, which, in the case of bread, effects the elasticity of dough and how well a loaf rises.”
Most compelling reason yet to quit driving my Mustang GT. [/sarc]
+1 ( and I’ll keep on my 5.7 hemi Jeep, much needed in our winters btw)
If this is the claim then how come during WW II the galleys in American submarines pumped out plenty of wonderful fresh bread and rolls in an environment that quite often had Oxygen levels well below ambient and Carbon Dioxide levels well above? An environment where a crewman could not light a cigarette even if he wanted to!
The batter mixed and then laid on one of the crew mess tables to rise no matter if the sub was submerged or not, but the actual baking would be delayed until after the sub had surfaced to keep down the heat in the boat.
Subs were known for having some great cooks and bakers that would turn out end results as good as the best that could be found ashore.
Perhaps Dr Fitzgerald should have done a little historical research before pumping out such a line of BS?
The issue seems to be in the growing, or what is grown and harvested. The baking part and ambient CO2 is not the issue. I think.
OMG we are all doomed! Doomed!
Crumbs.
+1
http://www.smh.com.au/cqstatic/ghsl3q/facejb2.JPG
āWheat growing in high carbon dioxide conditions in Victoriaā.
Just when you thought the CAGW thing could not get any sillier, damn! It does!!
The loaf on the right looks like it has had botox. Given a choice I would take the one on the left.
Lets just wait and see what happens when the plant breeding catches up with the atmospheric conditions and optimises the genetics shall we. That is the way the biosphere has worked for half a billion years or so as I understand it.
BTW, who knows, in 2050 the whole CAGW scare campaign may well have imploded a few decades earlier.
The loaf on the right looks suspiciously as if it were painted with egg-white to let it expand farther without splitting.
I thought the same thing.
By 2050, they’ll have taken control over the Internet and so all communication of information. You will need a license with a government ID to login. And anti-CAGW speech will be classified as felonious hate speech, along with whatever else catches Hitler’s fancy.
And we sterilized humans who remain will be begging for more worm rations.
Am I correct that this study involved exactly 2 loaves of bread?
Why not? When did replication of results ever have anything to do with “Climate Science”? If it did the models they have been using would have been in file 13 long ago.
Oh! That’s gonna leave a mark.
Tom Crozier
June 21, 2015 at 11:16 am
said:
Am I correct that this study involved exactly 2 loaves of bread?
——–
A miracle! He will starve the masses with only two loaves of bread.
Hmm I still smell fish…
I guess it’s the sermon that comes with it all, that I don’t agree with.
Somewhere along the line, someone presented this for publication, and someone accepted it. And through the length of that process, no one laughed and said “Are you kidding me?”. I find that amazing. Worse yet, in some way or another, I probably paid for this study.
They missed the most important variable. The seed they used to grow the wheat in high CO2 conditions came from a long line of wheat that was not grown in such conditions.
Idiots.
Why would anyone pay for such pointless research? How stupid do you have to be to fund this sort of nonsense?
You have to be government stupid.
That stupid, eh!
All it did was make me feel hungry.
Exactly, and plant breeders are just going to throw up their hands and walk away? I don’t think so. A lot can happen in 35 years. These studies ALWAYS leave out the wild card, human ingenuity!
If we had some bread, we could have some bread with our stone soup, if we had stone soup.
I, for one, welcome our new benevolent One-World Overlords.
Heinlein’s (stolen) version from Starman Jones was: If we had some ham we could have ham and eggs if we had some eggs.
We’ve got spam though…
Just when you think it couldn’t get more absurd…..it does. You can’t make this stuff up. They must think people are gullible enough to believe all the scare mongering for anything but what it really is.
More climate B+++ocks!
You really could not make this stuff up! in 10,000 years when our descendants read this. They will become deniers, we did not land on the moon, etcetc
Err… and exactly how is this going to be an issue outside a few countries in Europe where they actually know how to make proper bread?
I’ve long thought that the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony forgot to take the recipe for bread with them.
These researchers are real http://snag.gy/xq8JN.jpg
There’s also a huge difference between flour made from different types of wheat,and between winter and spring wheat,hard and soft wheat,red and white wheat. Some are high gluten,which has a higher protein content,others are low gluten,less protein content.
High gluten flour is for breads,low gluten is for cakes and pastries.
Wonder why no mention of this in the “study”?
There are also over 30,000 varieties of wheat-
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/flours/learn-more.html
The article begins with outright lies…
“If the promise of higher temperatures, rising sea levels and more frequent natural disasters doesn’t convince you of the urgent need for the world to act on climate change, maybe this picture will.
This is what global warming will do to your loaf of bread.”
Then there’s the “thin tubes” which provide the CO2-looks like 1/2″ galvanized pipe to me-or 12.7mm since it’s Australia-in an open field.
Just more throwing everything possible out there before the Paris climate change talks in the hopes that enough people have no clue about varieties of wheat,high and low gluten flours,different strains of yeast,and al the variables involved in baking believe this horsepucky.
Higher sea levels mean the CO2 loaf will sink and we will lose it. They didn’t think of that I bet.
Good point, haven’t seen the barometric pressure touched on yet!
I think the 1/2″ pipes are a boundary marker. The actual tubes must be at grade, not visible in the photo, though you can see some sort of connection riser near the “researchers.”
Yeah,I noticed that after I looked at the picture a little closer,I think the 1/2″/12.7 mm pipe is what supplies smaller “tubes” that disperse the CO2 at ground level.
The article stated that the seedlings were exposed to higher CO2 levels-still a lot of loss due to wind/air movement and rain
Not a very well controlled experiment,plus we don’t know what strain of wheat they used,whether it was a spring or summer harvest,ambient temp in their test kitchen,oven temp,how the dough was kneaded,how long it was allowed to rise…
Any way you look at the experiment-they’re full of sh*t-CO2 levels will have zero effect on baking bread.
If,and it’s a big if,there was any real effect on wheat’s protein content,the changes would take place very slowly-bakers would adapt their recipes.
This is a long term experiment that has been running for at least five years here in Horsham Australia.
http://www.piccc.org.au/research/project/252
Secondly to alleviate any ignorance, here in Australia we grow what genetically are Spring wheats but are adapted to grow right through our winter.
Seeding depending on the latitude and winter conditions and rainfall [ wheat is grown west of Mildura in a 250mm [ 10″ ] average annual rainfall band ] is from April through to July depending on the local regions climate characteristics.
The harvest period ranges from mid september in NSW and WA through to February in the south of Victoria
A first couple of winter wheat varieties adapted to Australia’s non snow and warm temperatures compared to the NH cereal growing regions, have just been released commercially.
DO NOT assume that what you are familiar with in grain growing applies elsewhere and make any judgments good or bad, until you know what you are talking about as to the operations and conditions of other growing areas.
Even here in Australia in our low rainfall, low yielding crops there are very marked changes in varieties, soils. fertilizer levels temperatures, rainfall and production methods and timing in only a couple of hundred kilometres distance.
CO2 during baking had nothing to do with those bread loaves. they are the same variety, the same aweight of g a couple of hundred grams used for the international I think, completely standardised, reproducible varietal baking test which is used to test the baking and bread qualities of EVERY variety that is a candidate for releasing to the growers.
The two miniature bread loaves illustrated are from the same variety from the same field , grown under the same conditions with just the CO2 concentration levels during it’s growing period being the one major difference in the whole experiment.
And that was the result.
A different variety might well have had a larger or smaller difference in the bread loaf characteristics under the same CO2 enrichment levels and that is what this is all about.
As to whether we will ever see those levels of atmospheric CO2 I frankly don’t believe we will.
And I will add that I have strongly disagreed and said so on many occasions with the direction of some grain research in it’s concentration of more warming and higher temperatures at the critical grain fill period here in Australia.
I have said many times that cold is what we should be worried about but the global warming theme has penetrated deep into every aspect of science to the great detriment of future flexibility in varietal breeding.
But I will lay odds that a couple of our plant breeders have a few varieties tucked away that can be used as cold tolerance crosses if such a cold period appears.
oh yes Horsham ag mob.. the ones that grew GM wheat in OPEN paddocks with free access to birds roos n fox n rabbits running through to spread seed?
as for cold tolerant seed, good luck with that for the avg farmer accessing it for a fair price if at all
locked up os isnt it?svaalbard with gates and the monmen able to grab n patent
and our ag import(justifibly so ) quarantine laws make imports near impossible if youre NOT a big agri mob.
saved seed of old varieties is slim to zip due to the mega industrials only wanting to BUY the new bred hybrid grains.
mates organic farm using OLD breeds on mid to poor soil no chem inputs grows 13/14% hard grain
silos dont want it, but organic mills sure do.
the input to farm are beyond rude using hitech “advice”n products
take those costs out and its far easier to make money
chemical to poison the soil?
or two passes with a disc spaced apart…same fuel cost but thousands less on toxic crud.
same 2 crops or use a variety and a fallow year?
let stock roam in the fallow year to eat weeds and fertilize.
that doesnt suit bigagri or industrial food manufacturers
doesnt do humans or the land any good either, to pander to them.
less “science” and more hands on experience from the old timers who KNOW the land would be good
“Secondly to alleviate any ignorance, here in Australia we grow what genetically are Spring wheats but are adapted to grow right through our winter.”
What you are growing is winter wheat-it grows through the winter,and is harvested in spring,when it completes its growth.
Note that I stated there are over 30,000 varieties of wheat.
Less protein in wheat-the claim made in the experiment, makes low gluten flour aka cake flour when the wheat is milled.
“CO2 during baking had nothing to do with those bread loaves.”
CO2 during baking has everything to do with how a loaf of bread turns out-dough rises because the yeast releases CO2 as it “eats” the sugars in the flour-along with added sugars.
The experiment is total bullsh*t-using only a single strain of wheat proves exactly nothing.
Similar soils,ambient temps,amounts of rainfall,fertilizers used,growing and harvesting methods found in Australia can be found in North America.
Do NOT assume that I have no idea about farming practices and growing conditions only in the small area in which I live.
Err yes OK. But did they bake the bread in a high CO2 room so that it fully replicate the BS new level?
As someone who has made too much beer, not yet enough wine, and maybe just enough bread – I can tell you that besides reproducing at a rate that would make rabbits blush – yeast eats sugar, farts CO2, and pees alcohol. No more, no less. It most definitely does not give a damn how the sugar came to be on it’s teeny plate.
So the bread didn’t rise as much because it didn’t have as much air in it?
Just play some of the CAGW promoters speeches to it. Not only will all the hot air make rise but it will also help bake it (at least half way) thus saving energy!
FTA: “”We don’t understand completely why that’s the case,” said Dr Fitzgerald, a senior research scientist with the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources.”
WUWT Quiz: How many errors of science can you spot in that one sentence?
Is Fitzzy even a ‘scientist’?
what a great study. they say more CO2 equals less protein in wheat, therefore less gluten, therefore less elasticity, therefore, “bread won’t rise as much, because the gluten provides the elasticity”.
Absolute freekin geniuses, they are.
Perhaps they should have contacted someone in the food biz. You want your wheat flour with more gluten? Just ask…
Professional bakers use flours with a variety of protein levels, depending on what their final product is to be. For instance, cakes need flour with a protein level very low, say 7%. Bread does well with 10-12%. Bagels/pizza dough like 14%. And if that isn’t enough protein, add concentrated wheat gluten at 75% protein. For a single loaf like they baked in the study, a tablespoon would have saved the day. So now maybe humans won’t go extinct from lack of protein in bread.
Yikes, can we get a grant to prove this?
Ah but why do you think the article didn’t say gluten?
Because 99.99% of the hypochondriac leftist dots who claim to be gluten intolerant don’t know what the hell it is.
To illustrate TOM T’s last comment:
Pedestrian Question – What is Gluten?
Study after study seems to show the negative consequences of increasing CO2. Despite the 25% increase in yields that they site, this study focuses on what clearly is identified as a negative consequence.
I’m not an expert on baking bread. Maybe wheat that grows under higher CO2 levels will not rise as much. It’s complex as they state.
However, I have been forecasting global crop yields/production for a living for over 2 decades. Without question, the increasing CO2 is contributing to higher crop yields/food production across the planet. Regardless of the rising capability of wheat, 25% more wheat is 25% more wheat. It doesn’t become less wheat because of the way it rises. Increasing the CO2 produces much more food for people to eat……….with almost every crop.
Note: The picture shown with the article shows 2 loaves of bread. The one identified as being grown in the higher CO2 environment looks around 25% smaller. Interesting visual impact when the reality is that they found that in the higher CO2 environment, there was 25% MORE wheat.
If you went to the grocery store and were told that for $2, you could have today’s bigger loaf as pictured in their article or tomorrow’s smaller loaf, which one would you pick? You would think that you are getting more for your money on the bigger loaf…………..but apparently, just the opposite would be true.
What if the choice was not as visually depicted but instead was stated based on the actual data from the wheat yields. Today’s amount of wheat for $2, or that same amount of wheat +25% more product for the same price based on the more favorable CO2 growing conditions?
Maybe the smaller loaf is more dense. Or maybe there would be more loaves to offset the smaller loaves.
Regardless, 25% more wheat is 25% more wheat and the reason was because the CO2 went up:
Sunshine +H2O +CO2 +Minerals = O2 +Sugars(food)
“…Maybe the smaller loaf is more dense…”
I know something that’s more dense.
“which, in the case of bread, effects the elasticity of dough and how well a loaf rises.”
If these DramaQueens can’t even write correct English, should we pay attention?
Their claim is that CO2 AFFECTS elasticity etc. Maybe it has an EFFECT, maybe not.
Maybe Glenn Fitzgerald should study the difference between a noun and a verb.
This may help:-
Liar = noun.
Lie = verb.
AH HA! Just as I suspected, if the chemistry of the ingredients change – so would the recipe:
“Substitute spelt or wheat flour, cup for cup, for all-purpose or bread flour in any bread recipe. However, for spelt make two adjustments: reduce the amount of water by 25% and reduce the mixing or kneading time by one half.
Whereas a Kamut bread requires more kneading and, as its gluten is less elastic, the addition of coarse ingredients (such as nuts, dried fruit or seeds) tends to tear and, therefore, compromise its leavening power.”
http://www.rebeccawood.com/food-as-medicine/spelt-and-kamut/
Apparently scientists want less wheat to make Pretty Bread that feeds less people; instead of more wheat that MAY make a lot of ugly bread.
Shaking My Head.
Pretty Bread – is that like Fairy Bread? 100’s and 1,000’s.
well the FOOD scientists DO
theyre adding pea flour and all sorts of plasticisers n crap that is NOT wheat to commercial mixes to save money and increase costs.
I grind whole grains add gluten yeast salt sugar n some oil and get a perfect loaf.
What evidence do you have that food scientist add crap to bread. Please report the evidence to the FDA. because crap in bread doesn’t sound good.
How long before the environmentalists call for a ban on yeast. . . . and break and wine, since, after all, they’re production results that noxious carbon dioxide being realized into the atmosphere, where it will stay for hundreds of years and cause the oceans to boil away. . .
This is your bread.
This is your bread on CO2.
Any questions?
Sure is a far cry from the 10-10 “no pressure at all … it’s your own choice” ads ain’t it?
Those ads look like something that someone would make to show how deranged environmentalists are, but psychotic environmentalists saved us all the trouble and outted themselves. Such is the nature of mental illness, I guess.
Lol
At what point does this stuff become a parody of itself?
apparently never
Ask Nathan Poe.
Sufficiently advanced climate science is indistinguishable from its parody.
Wow, man, this is a tragedy. I was literally pulling a slice of bread out of the bag when I opened this page.
So, if I understand them correctly, they’re saying, post climate change, I will have to have rice instead? Damn you, climate-change deniers!
This explains why I can’t get a decent Kosher corned beef sandwich in northern California
They withheld the news that the same experiment showed no change in pumpernickel.
You need to go to Montreal
Well known since the end of the 16th century : “Though this be madness,yet there is method in’t !”
It’s brainwashing and indoctrination even in completely absurd contexts!What counts for Jane and Joe Smith, is the number of CAGW messages!
hey! … that’s ma kin yer talkin’ about
But what they sez is you can pick yer friends, you can pick yer nose .. can’t pick yer relations.
Can’t eat yer friends neither.
There really is nothing (bad) that CO2 cannot do… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vdl3TRxv0c
This ploy is actually a GOOD sign – of how desperate they have become not only in trying to sell their agenda of doom about CO2 but in that it is cast within their capitulation that CO2 does indeed increase crop yields.
“Well okay, we admit there will be MORE bread to go around but, (oh the horror!), it won’t rise quite as well if we continue to prepare it the exact same way”; (which everyone knows is sacrosanct and cannot possibly be modified under penalty of ancient law X!)…
Given this “bread disaster” is there any question that the next thing they will be warning us about will be something like “global warming extends life expectancy but it causes bad breath, baldness and hair to grow out of your ears”?
Boy, that CO2 – what a gas!
You beltcha!
I think I can understand the derivation of Dr Fitzgerald’s concern. As with all research, the outcome can be influenced by the starting point and if the starting point is one of being a few sandwiches short of a picnic, then yes this may appear to be a potential issue.
Or more likely it is simply a pitch to secure, in the here and now, a research scientist’s “daily bread”?
I would like to see the two loafs sliced open.
You mean, You would like to inspect the bubbles created in the bread and look at its structure to see if the test was held to high standards of ethical science? They would never deceive or misrepresent things like this…/Sarc
ON a brighter note; they do admit to yield increases and faster growth.
Let them eat cake
Well, I am still waiting for a time when they can grow fields of barley in Greenland like the Vikings did 1,000 years ago. It is still not feasible because the growing season is still not long enough, even for barley, at the current time in Greenland.
I apologize ahead of time but I just could not pass this up.
This just has to be the results on another government funded climate study. At least this time it would seem the Australian taxpayers can marvel at what they have funded. By the year 2050 the bread wonāt rise.
However, with some in-depth thinking they would have realized that by 2050 Viagra will no longer be a patent medicine and will be generic. Put the little blue pill in the bread dough and it will rise.
Problem solved. Leave it to an engineer.
“Put the little blue pill in the bread dough and it will rise.” Bbbbut it would surely shrink the minute you bring a knife close to it.
Looking at the pic of pipes in an open field raises the question of: how was the CO2 concentration controlled and measured? Right from the get-go, the field methodology looks shonky, so the study (sensu lato) is likewise shonky.
The more ridiculous the claim, the more likely people will see it for what it is.
While it’s no doubt sad and all that mankind is going to be “wiped out by climate change in a hundred years” enduring on in pain beyond that point with soggy bread for breakfast is a horrible thought.
Utter garbage science. Who funded it?
Ok Even if we assume this research to be kosher, which it clearly isn’t, we could always stick to making soda bread.
But I have to say that this climate scientist clearly doesn’t understand how bread making works. I make bread regularly and no I’m not a baker although my family name is, and less dense or more dense bread appears not to be derivative entirely of flour. Whole wheat is more dense than pure white but add a knob of butter and a little more time to rise and it becomes very acceptable and tasty.
I think what Eric is trying to diplomatically say is that the production of the bread and or the article involved a dickhead or possibly dickheads.
Cheney, Nixon and VanDyke?
You know, my wife’s gluten-free bread stopped rising properly starting about three months ago. So that’s what’s causing it! My wife is so excited to have the reason at last — NOT.
Al Gore and the Pope agree. Let them eat cake.
Amen to that! ! ! š
This has got to win a price for stupidest research ever. Anyone remember the CO2 measurements from 19th/early 20th century collected by that late German biology teacher? Ernst Beck I think. Chemical method.
Now some of these measurements went up as high as 500 ppm. They were taken in German valleys in heavily industrialized zones. Like near Giessen which is north of Frankfurt.
Beck took it as proof that CO2 was way higher in the past, others pointed out that the measurements were influenced by local industry.
Anyway; you don’t take BREAD from Germans away and survive it. And no we don’t eat Matzo or KnƤckebrot that willingly. So, as no bread riots broke out under Bismarck’s program of industrialization I consider this “science” thoroughly refuted.
“…you donāt take BREAD from Germans away and survive it…”
Much of Hitler’s rise to power was the result of German resentment that the UK did exactly that after WWI, blockading Germany in violation of international law. As many as a million civilian casualties resulted, men, women, and children dying slowly of starvation. Others survived, but with considerable physical damage from inadequate nutrition.
Yeah. Where is there control group grown under zero CO2 conditions? I can’t wait to see the robust harvest from climate scientists garden of Eden when we eliminate CO2.
I guess once you have drunk the Kool-aid even Bigfoot is related to elevated CO2.
Did they control for the CO2 generated in the bread. I suspect in a large bakery CO2 will be quite a bit higher, probably more than projected for 2050. In the late 1950s, working on a geological survey field party, junior assistants were rotated so that one stayed in camp to bake bread, cook up breakfast and dinner for the two field geologists and their assistants. The first couple of weeks, the bread was like bricks. We used the worst loaves for axe throwing targets and other bushy games. By the 2nd to 3rd week the loaves began to be sliceable and less like hardtack. We found one fellow with a sciencey bent (physical sciencey to be sure) consitently made lousy bread. We discovered on a rainy day off that he was not heating the flour up in the oven (still could be frosty at night in June). He brilliantly took the cold flour, added the cup of yeast water/sugar to the scalded milk, butter and salt and then dumped them together into the flour to get roughly the right temperature.
Our best baker gave him an hour of instruction (which included adding the powdered milk to the flour): cooling the hot liquid and warming the dry ingredients, and we soon ran out of durable axe throwing targets. We cooked in a portable wood fired sheet metal stove with a couple of lengths of chimney pipe to get the smoke a couple of feet above our heads. Our lousy baker, now elevated to mere mediocre, still somehow blackened the tops of the pies which he unveiled with a flourish of tea towels and a ‘Ta dahhh’. We wondered if it trampled on his rights to not have him hired the next year. But it got even worse.
On a traverse with me, he got stung by a wasp and when a rash started to spread all over him, I hurried him back out of the bush to the canoe on the lake and got him back to camp as quickly as possible. Being the party chief, I was also the emergency surgeon. I got the trusty “Ship Captain’s Medical Guide”, which was first published in the 19th Century. I turned to the chapter on snake bites and insect stings and was advised to check for ‘haemera’ in the urine before administering sulpha drug. The miserable, welted, discolored fellow peed in a jar and I expected that haemera was something I would be able to see (blood?). It looked like a garden variety sample so I gave him the drug. It took him a couple of days to recover, but now we couldn’t risk taking him out in the bush again so he became our everyday cook and baker for the remaining three months of the field season.
http://www.dieselduck.info/machine/06%20safety/Ship%20Captain%27s%20Medical%20Guide%20-%2022nd%20Ed.pdf
I know for sure I can eat 2050 bread with no problem!!! Anyway, I think the CO2 bread looks more like the kind I like.
“So this is 2050 bread.”
I don’t want bread from 2050! I want a freakin’ sports almanac from 2050!
Or a flying car…a history of the stock market…a Mr. Fusion. If magical CO2 can bring us a loaf of bread from 2050, why not something useful?
As noted in earlier comments, Half baked uttering by an utter dough head.
At the dinner table one evening (in black and white) it was all to do with the “CO2 bread pause” dont’cha’know !
Phone rings … he picks up … and says … “Hello” (then a rather long PAUSE).
“It certainly is !”, he replies (then he hangs up the phone).
“Well … who was it ?”, asks the fat one.
“It was the operator: …………. she said … it’s a long distance from New York”.
Thank you Eric for a most entertaining post: I don’t know where you get ’em from but please keep ’em coming. Wonderful stuff.
Don’t worry. Dough will be raised with a carbon tax.
Is there a connection between CO2 and my hair. I have the impression it grows faster or more than years ago??
No, that’s an impression created by the rising cost of haircuts.
“I have the impression it grows faster or more than years ago??
I can provide conclusive proof that that is not always the case.
But then, if you still have hair, I’m probably older than you, !!
As usual climate “research” is always about how much dough they can make.
“Bread in danger! Send more bread.”
Let’s see here… the sea level is rising but the bread won’t. Take a xanax and rest.
āWe donāt understand completely why or if thatās the case,ā (bold mine)
far more real threat : bromated flour
http://breastcancerchoices.org/perfectstorm.html
Thanks, Donald Rumsfeld!
You’re making me hungry.
Time fixes everything at GISS. Be patient
http://s5.postimg.org/oemuicy1z/hogenised.jpg
+25%
I have good news and bad news….
On the economics front, the good news is that CO2 is an antidote for inflation!!
The bad news is that governments and corporations world-wide will ban it because they need some inflation to reduce the real size of the debt-load they carry.
the quality and variety of breads made today from wheat grown in 400 ppm Co2 is probably at least as good as the breads made in the 1920’s from wheat grown at 300 ppm
What a bombshell! Now I understand why we are spending those trillions of dollars. This problem must be fixed at any cost.I suggest solar-powered baking ovens for a start.
All posited on the foolish assumption that the use of fossil fuels have ANY effect on atmospheric CO2!
The real Achilles heal of global warming/climate change.
It honestly took me a year or two to get pretty good at making my own bread. The author is right about so many factors that affect the rise of bread. Too dry and it cracks open on rise and lets out the air. Too wet and it rises really good but flattens when you bake it. If you don’t kneed it well after the first rise, it pukes and looks bad along with it really flattens when you bake it. Not enough salt and it rises too fast and you get big air pockets. My technique is to warm the oven a hair, put a drippy towel inside, keep the light on and the rising also produces heat. It keeps the oven moist and I don’t have to cover the dough.
What phenomenal stupidity. Many cooks (including me) augment their bread flour with wheat gluten, which raises the protein level and makes a wonderfully stiff dough. Like this won’t be available in the future? Maybe I’d have to use 1 1/4 tablespoon/cup instead of 1.
Great for Jewish religious holidays!
Let them eat cake!
The comments are hilarious, but harsh. These researchers have found (by observation, not modelling) that
the proteins in wheat change under high CO2 levels. And they admit that they do not know what is going on. Better science than from most climate scientists
The problem with your comment is that their ‘science’ is being used politically, apparently with their help. The scary headline in SMH impales their nobility.
See ROM June 21, 2015 at 9:00 pm.
Considering the local and seasonal variability of co2 I find this claim very unlikely. even if true though I expect it could be adjusted for just as I was able to learn to grow bread at high elevations which proved difficult at first.
I’ve really enjoyed this comment thread, after a distressing day – thanks everyone!
As for the ‘research’ – we certainly are all doomed, if this represents the level of intelligence in universities these days. I made two loaves every three days all the years of my marriage, and no two ever emerged from the oven quite the same.
File under; everything and I mean EVERYTHING, is negatively impacted by this idiocy.
This should be the yeast of our worries
The sad part is that the taxpayers had to shell out hard earned money for this study. Or, is that “study”?
As a guy who also likes to bake bread fm time to time, i have to say i’m more than skeptical of the conclusions, given the huge number of variables involved, and total lack of information regarding protocols. I mean, for example, did they only bake the two loaves? If not, how many did they bake in their trial, and what were is the statistical analysis of the results? What were the criteria for a “better” loaf?
They might’ve done better to study the impacts of increased CO2 on the Krebs Cycle regarding beer… Fewer variables & in my experience (yep, brew my own, too), a lot easier to control for consistency than baking bread, tho’ p’raps that just illustrates my inadequacies as a baker…
Still: i think it’s remarkable, & a demonstration of a horrible waste of both imagination & entreuprenurial spirit, the lengths to which “researchers” will stretch the dread of Global Climate Farce in order to justify a grant, and an even more remarkable idiocy among those institutions, private AND public but especially public, that greenlight such grants.
They have proven nothing to me, unless to prove once again the depths to which they will stoop to further generate fear, at the expense of the Scientific Method, & the public trust in public & scientific institutions, government, etc.
Besides: given the acreage required for growing corn for biofuel, who will be even have flour to be able to bake bread if the alarmists get their way?
(Marie Antoinette? Whodat?)
Too bad the science editor at the Sydney Morning Herald failed to understand the research being done at AgFace. So let me give it a go:
(1) There is no way to avoid significant increase in CO2 concentrations over the next decades. 550 ppm by about 2050 is a sure thing.
(2) These higher CO2 concentrations will result in much higher yields (the researchers say 25%).
(3) However today’s crops have been bred and selected to make high quality foods under current CO2 conditions (up to 400 ppm).
(4) For some foods the higher yields are a total plus. Asian noodles made from wheat grown in high CO2 conditions will be as good as ever.
(5) However, bread made from today’s cultivars of wheat grown under high CO2 conditions rises more poorly than the small decrease in total protein in the wheat (3-9%) would suggest.
In order to take full advantage of yield benefits from increased concentrations of CO2, while still delivering the kind of bread that consumers want at low prices, the agriculture industry will have to develop new cultivars over the next 35 years. The researchers at AgFace believe this is eminently possible.
I’d like more research like this.
Seems unlikely that total protein amount is changing the bread quality when we have improved protein levels so highly in some cultivars the lat few decades. We improved total protein in our cereal crops by much more then 3-9% in recent decades. Those claiming such things haven’t explained what the difference is supposed to be so I doubt the entire claim.
As someone who bakes bread every week, there are many variables that have a profound effect on how well bread rises and what the final loaf will look like.
Was the wheat for both loaves harvested from the same field? Where both grains ground by the same milling machine? Were the same stand mixers used for both loaves? Were both doughs machine-kneaded for the exact same period of time? Were both loaves allowed to rise for the exact same time? Was the humidity and temperature the same during the rising process? Were both loaves baked in the same place in the same oven? Were the consistencies of the doughs exactly the same for both loaves? If the dough consistencies were different, was the water/flour content adjusted accordingly? Etc., etc., etc.
There are so many variables that have a profound effect on the final loaf. To blame artificially adjusted CO2 levels on the differences between the two loaves is absurd.
What effect did the artificial CO2 gas piping have on plants? Pressurized CO2 is very cold when it leaves the pipes. What effect did this cold air have on the wheat?… Was this accounted for?
When they laid the CO2 piping, did digging process affect the composition of the soil where the wheat was grown?
This is junk science….
Eric Worrall said: “To ignore all of this, and conclude that CO2 shrunk the slightly stunted loaf, in my opinion seems utterly absurd, even for climate science.”
How do you know that all those other variables were ignored?
There are articles like this every day here in Australia, and some times we are treated to more than one per day. Gutter “science” at it’s best.
That’s Glenn James Fitzgerald, of the Victorian DEDJTR (it used to be Environment and Primary Industries). Some of the background to this imaginative claim is online at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Fitzgerald
Cut their funding! Please, someone, ANYONE, cut their funding!
The crops research institute where Glen Fitzgerald works is just down the road from where I live.
I was also a trustee for 28 years on behalf of the grain farmers of Victoria for the land, bought by a levy on Victorian farmer’s grain production in the 1950’s for the establishment the Grains Research Institute.
I have attended many,Ā many forums, discussions and conferences at the Research Institute over the past decades including many where Glen Fitzgerald was also a speaker.
The Faifax owned leftist and specialising in media alarmist headline grabbing of the “The Sydney Morning Herald” such as the title of the article “What climate change will do to your loaf of bread” is a typical and dramatically alarmist characteristic of this media outlet that ignores the whole message in favour of the highly alarmist agenda demands of the paper’s editorial and owner’s demands and ideology.
At least Nicky Phillips , the SMH’s Science editor did have the grace to at least include the caveats and further considerations involved in bread research in high CO2 concentrations that Glen Fitzgerald along with all the other bread grain researchers, genetic analysts and gene selection experts, the bread research chemists and last and most importantly, the actual wheat variety plant breeders who select, grow and deliver the final varietal product to the farmers to grow and produce, all of whom would fully back Glen Fitzgerald where he is quoted in the article as;
————
[quoted;]
AgFace leader Glenn Fitzgerald said the effect of high carbon dioxide on grains is complex. On the one hand, it makes plants such as wheat and canola grow faster and produce greater yields but, on the other hand, they contain less protein. Elevated carbon dioxide also alters the ratio of different types of proteins in wheat, which, in the case of bread, effects the elasticity of dough and how well a loaf rises.
“We don’t understand completely why that’s the case,” said Dr Fitzgerald, a senior research scientist with the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources.
The group is now conducting research to see whether it can reverse the protein decline through the selection of new varieties of wheat. Grain breeders might then be able to develop new wheat strains with traits that can overcome this problem.
“It can take 10 to 15 years for a new trait to be worked into a new variety [of grain] so if we’re looking ahead at 35 years, that means we can do several generations of testing. It gives us lots of time,” Dr Fitzgerald said.
“There are positives, and we’re trying to accentuate those,” he said.
For instance, yields increase by about 25 per cent, on average, under elevated carbon dioxide.
[ cont.]
—————————–
Adverse comments on this research fail to understand that this research under the AGFACE system of “Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enhancement” is being done with today’s current field grown varieties that are currently used by farmers for bread wheat production along with a few advanced and new varieties that if judged as an advance on current varieties of bread, pasta, noodle, starch and etc producing wheat varieties will be released for farmer production over broad acres.
Do Not lose sight in any uncomplimentary remarks you might like to make of what Glen Fitzgerald is quoted in the latter part of the SMH article article and which I have quoted above;
“It can take 10 to 15 years for a new trait to be worked into a new variety [of grain] so if we’re looking ahead at 35 years, that means we can do several generations of testing. It gives us lots of time,” Dr Fitzgerald said.
“There are positives, and we’re trying to accentuate those,” he said.”
My respect for scientists and science in most disciplines has fallen not yet to rock bottom but getting close. But as a farmer and knowing how Ag scientists operate and often under what for other branches of science staffed by ivory towered academics would be unacceptable requirements and demnds I have the utmost respect for these guys who are real world scientists with their feet on the ground literally, dealing with the harsh realities of an ever changing climate, of new plant diseases, of diseases constantly evolving and changing, of ever changing food processor and flour miller’s demands, of changing consumer demands and tastes, demands of growers and the constant changes in farm and crop technologies, all of which demand that crop varieties of every type are constantly being upgraded and changed.
Changes which the plant breeders and all the technology specialists who support them are expected to be able to deliver the goods or else nobody buys and sows their varietal product.
End of your tenure as plant breeder whether government or private in you don’t deliver.
Glen Ffitzgerald and his team are doing their job and doing it well as they as Glen says, have to look as much as two or three decades ahead as a single variety of wheat or barley or food grain and etc can take up to a decade or more from when it is first crossed and selected to when it hits the farmers fields and the consumer’s taste buds.
ROM is one of my favorite posters. I really like when ROM drops by!
ROM says, “I have the utmost respect for these guys who are real world scientists with their feet on the ground literally, dealing with the harsh realities of an ever changing climate, of new plant diseases, of diseases constantly evolving and changing, of ever changing food processor and flour millerās demands, of changing consumer demands and tastes, demands of growers and the constant changes in farm and crop technologies, all of which demand that crop varieties of every type are constantly being upgraded and changed.”
Still, this flexibility and responsiveness of the breeders and the growers to constantly adjust to their own conditions and make all of those micro-decisions is what would be lost if these type of studies emphasize only one condition (increased co2) are used by politicians to dictate wheat varieties.
I am happy to hear of your very high industry standards, and I would hate for them to be lost in order to enforce global warming tolerant wheats.
Thanks Zeke.
The politicians at least here in Australia have NO input or say as to what wheat and other new crop varieties are selected for commercial production by farmers and millers and bakers.
The CO2 FACE experiments are just one very small and minor part of the whole grain research and grain breeding research programs here in Australia and across the world generally and will not affect the release of new varieties except what is learn’t from the FACE experiment and many, many other research projects willĀ be incorporated into new varieties if the particular outcomes of any of those research projects is applicable to the quality and growing characteristics of the new potential variety.
Australian grain farmers and the commercial food industries are financing and controlling the research and release of new varieties based entirely on infield trial yields, disease resistance, herbicide tolerance, performance under various farm ing technologies such as straw retention and no-till plus soil types performance, regional climate performance, tolerance to different soils with high levels of a number of different elements ie Aluminium as an example plus a number of other elements and a number of other general growing characteristics as a part of their potential commercial in the farmer’s field performance.
Plus very extensive and closely controlled laboratory assessments including the closely controlled baking trial assessments for quality characteristics plus milling, baking and keeping qualities, which from memory amount to roughly about 20 plus criteria of a new variety of wheat before that variety becomes potentially acceptable to the milling and baking industries.
All this data and information is collated during the varietal breeding program and is used by the plant breeders plus agronomists plus milling and baking industry researchers to assess and either give the ok for the release of a new variety for the preliminary commercial production under commercial farming conditions where tonnages of a couple of hundred tonnes are grown of the new variety which is finally assessed in commercial milling and baking trials. If the new variety passes those commercial milling and baking trials, the variety is released for full commercial production by farmers or if the commercially grown tonnages are not up to scratch in the required quality characteristics as far as the milling and baking industries are concerned, the new variety is canned and therefore does not go into commercial production.
This entire process can take up to decade to a decade and a half from the initial crossing of the variety, through the selection process out of thousands of crosses, through the laboratory quality assessments and into the initial bulking up from a few plants into a tonne or so of seed for the commercial in field growing and commercial quality assessments on commercial tonnages of the new varieties to assess grain quality characteristics under commercial grain growing systems.
As farmers we grew a new variety of barley for the brewing industry which had gone all the way through the entire breeding and selection process for over a decade or more but when put through the commercial brewing industries commercial production system, did not match up to the brewer’s quality criteria and so was just eliminated as a new variety for commercial production.
Every wheat variety that is a potential release to the farmers has it’s dough characteristics plus the other 20 or more milling and baking requirements, not including the growing requirements such as disease resistance, fertilizer requirements, soil characteristic requirements and etc and etc.
ALL potential varieties that pass the plant breeders very harsh in field growing assessment where literally a few thousand plants crossed and selected each year from the first cross will be pulled up and destroyed by the field inspections of the plant breeder. The few dozen that get through this field selection by the plant breeder are tested for baking qualities as published in the SMH article as are all the similarly selected varieties of the other plant breeders.
The dough qualities and baking qualities and there are hundreds of potential varieties where a grain sample is tested for milling qualities, flour yields, flour qualities and etc and etc, finally have to go through a stringent, highly standardized comparative baking test which possibly as many as three quarters or more of the potential release varieties for are rejected due to inadequate bread/ pasta. noodle and etc qualities.
The varieties that get through the baking and other tests are tested again the following season against other advanced in breeding varieties and selected again on all the traits demanded by processors, millers , bakers and consumers.
Finally a variety that meets most of the requirements and specifications or is found to have some very advantageous and specific characteristic which makes it highly suitable for use in a particular sector of processing and / or a farming grower situation is released for production.
If it doesn’t do the job from the growers point of view in that it proves to have less yield or is subject to specific diseases or it’s quality leads to lower prices then it is likely to be rapidly discarded by the growers and processors and millers.
With the “end point royalties” system , royalties paid by the farmer [ Australia ] on his tonnage production which goes to the breeder’s organisation or company, no grower production, no end point royalties, no income from the wheat or barley or grain variety for the breeders organisation / company and the breeder just keeps on trying all over again or after enough failures, finds another job..
Its worse than we thought.
The finding is not absurd if it gets him a grant to pay his bills for another few years.
This research amongst many other agricultural science research projects is financed by the Grains Research and Development Corporation[ Australia’s GRDC ] from which one half of it’s research monies come from a levy on Australian farmers grain tonnage production plus the other matching half from the government.
The three GRDC regional research panels formed from well regarded Ag advisers and farmers in each major grain growing region are the arbiters of where, what and who gets our research funds.
http://www.grdc.com.au/About-Us/GRDC-Regional-Panels
Hi ROM, it is clear that there are benefits to researching CO2 enrichment, which is obviously what is really happening there, it is just unfortunate that the media have to put a CO2 is bad twist on everything. you shouldnt really expect people to see much past that, because that is the story being put forward and everyone has had their fill of CO2 is bad.
I notice they don’t mention spraying additional Oxygen in the vicinity as well. With increased plant yields there’d be more atmospheric Oxygen, this could affect the protein structures as well.
Then with increased plant yields there’d be more decomposing plant growth and thus more nitrogen which is a major plant food which could also increase protein content (who knows)
Surely they didn’t just spray CO2 next to some wheat?….that would be almost as bad as the Popular mechanics 911 thermite test where they ignite a bag of thermite next to a beam lol as opposed to a directional charge.
I bake, and get tips from my local craft baker, who makes beautiful sourdough. On a domestic scale you need to use an electronic scale and weigh all the ingredients to the gram to get consistent dough properties. If you don’t, you’ll have to adjust your rising times. At the levels of dough hydration you work at to get a nice texture, there’s a sharp cusp between too wet and too dry. Using 1200g flour, 792g water will yield a looser dough than 780g. That’s 66 vs 65% in baker’s percentages. Not much wiggle room.
Never mind the CO2 in the growing environment, how big were their plots, how much grain was grown? What scale was the batch the baked? Who did the baking , one of the ‘researchers’ ? Unless they have done multiple simultaneous bake-offs in the same oven, at the hands of a skilled baker, this is bunk.
Please read what I have posted in another couple of posts above.
. These loaves are baked exactly in high quality research dough and bread making machinery
according to a standardised and very accurately controlled and rigorous set of baking requirements that are used in assessing EVERY potential varietal of wheat candidate [ similar standardised and rigorous testing is applied to every food grain including barley varieties for beer production ] for release as soon as enough grain is available, a few hundred grams from a few plants, to mill, extract the flour from and assess the flour yield, an important characteristic for commercial millers, and bake into miniature loaves under highly controlled, rigorous, repeatable and universal criteria as seen in the above photos from which the baking and bread quality characteristics can be accurately measured and assessed.
It is on the quality of the bread/ noodle / pasta / flat breads quality that a variety will continue on in the breeding program or be eliminated.
There is a complete and quite large industry that produces these research laboratory milling, dough mixing and bread making machinery for plant breeding operations and for the commercial bread making companies to test and maintain standardised qualities that are an absolute requirement for commercial bread making, some of which runs into many tens of tonnes of bread a day for distribution through numerous outlets.
Which makes me shake my head in some bewilderment when I see posters here expressing their opinions, often condemning opinions based on nothing more than on their own occasional bread loaf making endeavours.
Ironic of course that they use flours and other bread additives that are from the very varieties and the testing systems in plant breeders establishments that have been through the very process that they are getting so heated about the uselessness of it all.
Not a mention anywhere or any apparent understanding that a very large percentage of the forecast 723 million tonnes of wheat that will be grown in the world this year will be milled into flour and made and baked in huge commercial millers and bakeries which is what the breeders are primarily catering for.
They are the providers of the specifications for the flour qualities in the wheat varieties that the researchers and breeders have to meet for a variety to be acceptable to the commercialĀ millers and bakers let alone the growing characteristics of the variety the farmers who will grow that variety..
And to add, the millers and bakers have to meet the quality demands of YOU, the buying public as well as meet the prices You are prepared to pay for your loaf of bread.
So all those quality demands and requirements plus just as importantly Your pricing demands all flow right back up the line through the bakers, the millers , the farmers, the bread research scientists, the grain, dough and bread testing laboratories, [ and there are such laboratories such as the “Bread Research Institute” in Sydney run and financed by the millers and bread manufacturers ] the plant breeders, the genetic and plant variety cross selectors / breeders from you, the buying public.
If you don’t like bread from some source there are lots of options and everybody up that line knows it and works to try and supply You, the customer with what you demand and are willing to pay for.
Thank you for all the info explaining what the researchers are working to do. I can also see the bread companies being picky about what they get from farmers to ensure their repeatable process in making bread. I make my own bread because I don’t like the store bread because it get mushy too easy and sticks between my teeth and rather tasteless. I like to add all sorts of things in my bread, seasoning, seeds, onions, garlic that adds light flavor. My bread seems to last longer in the fridge if I don’t use it for some reason. My bread just doesn’t mold so fast. I think these bread companies have mold in their plants and spores get on their bread.I may have mold in my house but not that kind that. Any way thanks for all the explanation.
Where are the farinograph results for the two different flours used in baking those test loaves?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farinograph
So after reading your two posts, let me see if I understand:
If you bake two loaves of bread using exactly the same ingredients under carefully controlled conditions with the only difference being controlled amounts of CO2, you will get larger bubbles in the bread in the low CO2 environment because of the reaction of the yeast to the atmospheric conditions, resulting in a change in appearance between the two loaves. The nutritional value of the bread, and the net weight of the loave will remain unaltered. ONLY the appearance and texture of the bread will be changed.
Am I supposed to care that the appearance of the two loaves will be different? Is that the concern?
Its ok – we can relax.
The noodles will be more yellow
http://www.piccc.org.au/sites/piccc/files/Panozzo%20C.pdf
In order for this experiment to actually simulate bread making in a fabled CAGW world, all of the ingredients would have to have been produced in a high CO2 environment, not just the wheat. And the bread would have to be made (mixing, rising, baking, cooling) in the same high CO2 environment.
And the experiment would need to be repeated hundreds of times by an experienced baker.
Was any of this done? I highly doubt it.
I prefer to see a bread loaf ensemble for two CO2 concentrations: the concentration the world could have by 2050 if fossil fuel emissions are reduced using the harshest most agressive plan, such as a combination of the EU, Obama, and China “promises”. This is about 500 ppm. A second ensemble would use 540 ppm, the concentration if we continue burning fossil fuels without restrictions other than the ones in place, and allow market forces to increase fuel prices as these non renewable resources are depleted.
Each ensemble would have 100 loaves, which would be judged by world class food tasters and chefs. They would give each loaf a quality ranking, and the statistics would be released in a paper in Nature, with Twitters by famous chefs touting the winner.
The 40 ppm concentration difference may be too subtle for wheat plants to change much, and most people cant figure out the differences, but I’m sure a focused effort will find a slight quality difference we can use to blame CO2.
Follow up studies can be performed with donuts, pancakes, cookies, pies, and puffed wheat cereal.
More scientific dishonesty by the AGW crowd. Aside from the obviously unscientific nature of this work, it is also inherently dishonest to display a loaf that has been glazed to make it more attractive, next to an unglazed loaf.
Nope!
NO differences at all in the way in which the two samples of flour from the same variety, one grown outside of the CO2 ring and the other from inside of the high CO2 concentration ring, were milled and baked.
The whole idea with every one of these miniature loaves made from a couple of hundred grammes of flour from each variety under absolutely identical milling and baking conditions is to accurately ascertain the baking characteristics of the varieties and in some cases such as this, to get a true example of the changes in the finalĀ product, the bread loaf that you might buy, that will occur in the same variety but under different conditions.
Its called research and in this case hard practical research that might affect future production of one of the world’s staple food items .
An experiment based on observation and experimentation and hard actual results, not models, with an eye to the future even though some here may disagree as do I as well with the consensus predictions for that future.
There was a rumour that by switching from North American to German wheat the British diet had become dangerously low in selenium. Yawn. I am sure there are a lot of people much better at complaining than I who will nail this stodgy bread problem long before it reaches my sandwich.
April fool’s day?
Ah, not to worry — the yeast will evolve.
Yep, and when you yeast expect it.
“Honey, the CO2 shrunk the bread!”
There’s a movie in there somewhere.
Optimal yeast growth happens at around 37Ā°C. Baking on a cold dry morning can cause the top crust to burn.
Please generously support additional research in this area, they knead the dough….
Correct me if I am wrong , but doesn’t yeast rising produce CO2 and raise it’s own levels of the evil gas ?
Horrors !!!!!!!!………. brewing beer has the same problem ……ooooooh! No!
No wonder Taxes are high …..All that money paid out to Scientists ( oops! idiots ) to produce this drivel and
call it Science.
Two loafs of bread is now considered a proper scientific experiment? I once baked bread on a Monday and it turned out horrible. I scientifically concluded that Monday’s cause horrible bread.
Baking soda release co2 to raise the bread. Co2 is the reason the bread actually gets higher.
Add one more to the NumberWatch ‘warmlist’ – the list of things caused by global warming. Global warming causes incompetent bakers.
“I have hand prepared fresh bread at least twice a week, for the last 5 years. There are so many variables which can influence bread dough.” ~Eric Worrall
I have used a bread machine for that long. It was an excellent purchase. I wish I would have known about this when we just started out as a married couple. You have to buy the flour ground for bread machines to get perfect bread every time. (Unless it is not perfect for some reason. (; )
Bread machines are efficient, and so are microwaves, rotisseries, rice cookers, and slow cookers. They only heat a small space for a short time, or for a longer time using far less heat. Many devices like this make cooking very easy and it takes less energy. For example, a microwave cooks 8 potatoes in just 8 minutes, vs. 45 minutes in an oven. So when people like the Pontifex Maximus in his latest encyclical complain about the impacts on the environment of so many people cooking meals 3 times a day using fire, I am shocked that eliminating coal is presented as a solution.
Fire is what mere mortals use to cook food. Coal fire is hotter and more efficient than wood, it is low-tech, can be transported easily and safely over distances, smaller modules can be built anywhere, and it provides a cleaner burning method than any other fire. The number of devices that can be used to cleanly prepare so much food using electricity from that one fire in the coal plant is amazing. And bread machines especially.
The pelletized wood from the US that the British Drax plant is now shipping in and burning is very sensitive to moisture in the air, it is very dusty, and it has a much greater volume than coal.
Drax: transformation to biomass, July 2013
https://youtu.be/zM0GhOTqzpU?t=1m4s
Probably a home oven using wood that has not been processed, pelletized, shipped across the Pacific, transported by train, and stored in massive new domes would be a simpler and cleaner way to cook bread. Put that in your encyclical.
the article is a sleight of mind
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hans-Joachim_Weigel/publication/232872660_CO2_Enrichment_Effects_on_Forage_and_Grain_Nitrogen_Content_of_Pasture_and_Cereal_Plants/links/02e7e52737271eed07000000.pdf
“the reduction in grain N almost always was accompanied by a considerable increase of grain yield
(+34% for wheat, > +50% for barley), while the yield enhancing effect was much smaller when plants were grown in the field soil (OTC, FACE). However, when the ratio % N of elevated/ambient CO2 of all wheat results was plotted against the corresponding ratio for wheat yields, no consistent relationship was found (data not shown). Hence the results do not clearly support the overall assumption that increased yield”
…yeast doesn’t eat protein. Article is invalid.
I just gave a consideration to their CO2 diffuser rigging and came to the conclusion that they haven’t got a damned clue what they’re doing. Cold CO2 is gonna drizzle out of those pipes and drop to the ground as its blown away by the wind – it will have ZERO effect on the plants..
Well, that’s it! We better do something about this Climate Change. The Science tells us that our bread will no longer rise (sob, sob). It is 100% certain, absolutely for sure and if you don’t do something to stop this from happening then you are a hater.
When did things get THIS ridiculous? These people have literally gone completely insane. They are seriously trying everything they can, everything. If you don’t care about the fish, then what about the bread? If you don’t care about the bread, then what about never being able to ski? If you don’t care about skiing then, what about, oh, I don’t know… taking a crap. Yeah, that’s right! The pressure changes caused by Human CO2 emissions will make it impossible to take a crap soon. It seems that people like to take a crap, so we are applying for 1 billion dollars to prove that climate change will hinder your crap taking ability. We already have a draft Nature paper on the burner.
I bet the flour dust from 2050 will still explode.
I can’t see flour mills reducing their safety standards.
If medical and drug research was conducted and published like climate science, there would be no population problem to worry about.