Responses of wheat and rice grain mineral quality to elevated carbon dioxide and canopy warming

Abstract

The impact of climate change on grain quality is a critical issue for human health. However, how grain chemical element composition responds to climate change stresses has been poorly addressed. An open-air field experiment was conducted to investigate the impacts of factorial combinations of [CO2] (elevated [CO2] (500 ppm) vs ambient [CO2] (410 ppm)) and canopy air warming (+ 2 °C) on grain chemical element concentrations for two consecutive years in a rice-wheat rotation system. Overall, elevated [CO2] decreased the concentrations of most chemical elements by 4.2-20.1% in grain, but remarkably increased grain Mn, Mo, Cr, Ni, Cd and Pb concentrations by 9.2-72.9% for both crops. In contrast..