argylesock says… Climate change is happening. We humans caused it. Here’s yet another way that climate change threatens people, especially poor people. [Edit] I looked up the original paper (behind a paywall, but my University library has a subscription) and found that the crops these scientists tested were varieties of rice (Oryza sativa), wheat (Triticum aestivum), maize (corn, Zea mays), soya (soybeans, Glycine max), field peas (Pisum sativum) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor).
Science on the Land
-
Join 516 other subscribers
-
Recent Posts
- How genetic modification is done: 1. Agrobacterium
- Biotechnology in Action
- New contact details
- Neonic makers might pay for research about neonics on the land
- A neonic that’s bad news for birds
- Hello Ms Truss
- Goodbye Mr Paterson
- Séralini’s rat-feeding trial (part 5)
- New Séralini study shows Roundup damages sperm
- America’s dwindling diversity
Tags
- academia
- alien species
- America
- arthropod
- Asia
- bacterium
- biotechnology
- breeding
- cattle
- child
- climate
- conservation
- corn
- crop
- crop variety
- data
- development
- disease
- ecosystem
- Europe
- farm
- farmer
- feed
- finance
- finfish
- food
- food safety
- food security
- forest
- garden
- genetic modification
- grain
- grocery
- herbicide
- history
- honeybee
- human
- hunting
- hymenopteran
- insect
- insecticide
- knowledge
- land use
- law
- livestock
- maize
- mammal
- meat
- Monsanto
- native species
- nutrition
- pest
- pesticide
- plant_dicot
- plant_monocot
- politics
- pollination
- population
- poverty
- research
- rice
- ruminant
- sea
- seed
- selective breeding
- staple food
- sustainable
- trade
- tree
- vertebrate
- water
- wild bee
- wild food
- wildlife
- woodland
Science on the Land 
Do you know if the yield was higher with the increased CO2?
Yes it was, if you’re talking about the yield of starch. The authors (Myers et al, Nature online May 2014, doi:10.1038/nature13179) seem to have expected that. But they observe that their results don’t suggest a simple ‘carbohydrate dilution’ in which more starch would dilute the micronutrient concentrations. The changes arising when CO2 was elevated varied between micronutrients, between crop species and between varieties of the same crop.
Myers et al say, ‘[B]reeding programmes will not be a panacea for many reasons including the affordability of improved seeds and the numerous criteria used by farmers in making planting decisions that include taste, tradition, marketability, growing requirements and yield. In addition… there are likely to be trade-offs with respect to yield and other performance characteristics when breeding for increased zinc and iron content.’