Interaction of CO2 and drought in barley

Lead Institute BD Institute of Biodiversity

Investigation of interactive effects of water supply and elevated CO2 on winter barley genotypes

Plant growth and yield of C3 crops are known to be positively affected by elevated CO2. It is also known that intraspecific variability in the response to CO2 exists among genotypes, however, it is unclear how drought can modify the genetic variability in the responses of crop species to elevated CO2. Our study aims to investigate the interaction between drought and elevated CO2 on barley genotypes .

Background and Objective

Along with the overall climate change the increase of the atmospheric CO2 concentration will directly affect crop growth. The "CO2 fertilization" is generally assumed to have beneficial effects for crop growth and yield by stimulation of photosynthesis and is supposed to mitigate negative effects of other abiotic stresses such as drought. However, there is considerable genotypic variability in the response to elevated CO2, but no information exist of the genetic variability of the mitigating effect of CO2 on drought stress.

The objective of this study is to investigate the interactive effects of elevated CO2 and drought on selected genotypes of winter barley.

Approach

A selection of winter barley genotypes which showed different growth responses to elevated CO2 in open-top chamber experiments in Braunschweig will be investigated for their responses to factorial combinations of elevated CO2 and drought stress in a greenhouse in Martonvasar (Hungary).