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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 CO₂ 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.
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, 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;
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[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.]
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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 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.”
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 will 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 commercial 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 final 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 37°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.