Manipulating Agricultural Plants for a Future High CO₂ Environment

Abstract

This paper discusses the potential ways in which C₃ plant performance may benefit from a future high-CO₂ environment. These include increases in the efficiencies for light, nitrogen and water utilisation, particularly at elevated temperatures, resulting from the improvement which will occur in the performance of the primary carboxylating enzyme, Rubisco. However, while growth experiments at elevated CO₂ indicate that C₃ plants show stimulation of dry matter accumulation, the potential gains are greatly ameliorated by a redistribution of plant resources. This primarily occurs via a reduction in the leaf area ratio which offsets increases in the net assimilation rate. In addition, there may be an overcommitment of nitrogen in key photosynthetic components such as Rubisco and the thylakoid electron transport system. It is concluded that plants may not be genetically adapted to optimise their growth and performance at elevated CO₂ and that consideration should be given to exploring avenues for manipulating plants for more optimal responses. Targets for improvement of growth at elevated CO₂ include (1) altering source-sink relations; (2) improving the redistribution of nitrogen between the photosynthetic machinery and the rest of the plant; and (3) changing the response of stomata to CO₂ and humidity to increase water-use efficiency even further than is currently predicted.