The impact of elevated CO₂ on yield of vegetables

Elevated atmospheric CO₂ (eCO₂) is well reported to enhance the yield of vegetables.
In this study, a meta-analysis was conducted which included 114 articles focusing on the observations on yield and yield components of vegetables to comprehensively understand the effect of eCO₂ on vegetable yield.
Elevated CO₂ increased the fresh and dry yield of vegetables by 32.9% (n=7324) and 38.2% (n=1583), respectively.
The increased yield can be attributed to the increased number of the vegetable organs largely by 32.0% and increased vegetable weight per number (size) to a lesser extent.
In addition, eCO₂ increased the harvest index by 23.1%, contributing to a yield improvement.
Moreover, eCO₂ increased root/shoot dry mass ratio to 8.1%, indicating that more nutrients were required to save biomass investment into roots, thus potentially resulting in a greater harvest index.
As vegetables are preferably chosen in people’s diet, and more and more vegetable products are required, CO₂ fertilization should be taken as a measure for vegetable production in the greenhouse continuously.

International Symposium on Advanced Technologies and Management for Innovative Greenhouses: GreenSys2019

Jinlong Dong, N. Gruda, Xun Li, Zengqiang Duan

climate change, elevated carbon dioxide, greenhouse vegetables, harvest index, meta-analysis, nutrient requirement, vegetable yield

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2020.1296.36