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Could Climate Change Help Wheat, Rice and Soybeans Grow More Efficiently?

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.

Helena Marsh
Helena MarshEditor-in-Chief
2 min read
Could Climate Change Help Wheat, Rice and Soybeans Grow More Efficiently?

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.

READ ALSO: World’s Coral Reefs Are Slowly Dying

Average yields of current rain-fed wheat areas, mostly located in higher latitudes including the US, Canada and Europe, might go up by almost 10 per cent, and consumption of water would go down a corresponding amount. Average yields of irrigated wheat, much of India and China’s production, could decline by 4 per cent.
It is difficult to predict how the mixture of factors caused by global warming will impact the way crops grow around the world, but a new study shows the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might help crops grow more in some parts, in spite of the changing climate.
Researchers have introduced artificially heightened levels of carbon dioxide to farm fields, and measured the results on the production of maize, soybeans, wheat and rice. Here, experimental plots at the University of Arizona’s Maricopa Agricultural Centre.

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.

Story Via, Dailymail.co.uk

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Helena Marsh

Helena Marsh

Editor-in-Chief

Helena Marsh is the Editor-in-Chief at TrendinTech, where she leads editorial strategy and oversees coverage across artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise technology. With more than a decade in technology journalism on both sides of the Atlantic, she previously served as a senior editor at Wired UK and covered the technology sector for The Guardian, following the rise of the big platforms, the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the regulatory push from Brussels and Washington. Helena holds an MA in Journalism from City, University of London and is a regular speaker at Web Summit in Lisbon and CES in Las Vegas. She believes technology reporting should be rigorous and plainly written, so readers understand what actually changes for them rather than what a company's announcement promises.

All stories by Helena Marsh (201)