Transpiration and Leaf Area Under Elevated CO₂: Effects of Soil Water Status and Genotype in Wheat

Abstract

Transpiration rate, leaf area expansion, water use and water-use efficiency (WUE) of spaced plants of wheat (cvv. Matong and Quarrion), were examined at ambient and twice ambient CO₂ concentrations in wet and drying soil regimes. A hypothesis tested was that both stomatal conductance (g_s) and leaf area development are so regulated by the plant in relation to soil water status that the reduction of approximately 40% in gs in high CO₂ has no permanent impact on whole-plant water use. Whereas, during a soil drying cycle, leaf area increase under elevated CO₂ counterbalanced closely for reduced gs in terms of soil water depletion as reported elsewhere, this counterbalance was neither exact at all times, nor did it apply when the soil was continuously wet. In wet soil, leaf area was not enhanced much by elevated CO₂, probably because, under the high radiation and nutritional conditions used, the tillering rate was almost maximal anyway. Quarrion, having a 40% lower gs than Matong genetically, did not counter-balance a reduced transpiration rate with a larger leaf area under either drying or wet soil conditions. These results support rejection, for wheat, of the hypothesis posed; elevated CO₂ increased leaf area mainly by virtue of the direct photosynthetic increase rather than changed soil water status. In wet soil, low gs Quarrion had a higher CO₂ effect on WUE (+ 73 to 82%) than did Matong (+54 to 65%). In drying soil, both cultivars had a similar increase in WUE at high CO₂ (+60 to 68%).