There has been researching carried out to find a way to force crops to use water very efficiently. By 2080, it is believed that soybeans, rice, wheat, and maize will be affected thanks to an increase in carbon dioxide. Some areas will still fail, but this will be for other reasons, mainly climate change.
Plants find photosynthesis easier when there is extra carbon around. Air comes in through the leaves and water comes from the stomata. Thanks to carbon being present they stay a little more closed and less comes out. The more recent research has been carried out at the Maricopa Agricultural Centre, which is part of the University of Arizona.
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Early signs are that the efficiency of water use will be 18% for soybeans,13% maize, 27% wheat and 10% rice. This, however, will not guarantee improved growth, but in some areas of Canada, Europe, and the USA there could be a 10% increase. There are some projections that show maize could still lose out and this could mean an 8.5% drop in production.
Delphine Deryng accepts that there are a lot of factors to take into account for there to be adequate adaptations. Based at Columbia University, the environmental scientist does not accept that carbon dioxide is automatically a good thing. There have been other research programmes carried out over the years, but still there must be more data collected according to retired US Department of Agriculture researcher Bruce Kimball.
