Climate change is upon us. Until we seriously reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and their secondary effects, climate change will affect our crops. The big question is how plants will react to the new climate. Farmers and plant breeders need answers to this question so they can be prepared when they have to improve and grow suitable crops.

The EU project Modcarbostress, which has the participation of scientists from Aarhus University, will try to produce answers to this question. The scientists will create new and more detailed knowledge about how crops respond to the combination of increasing CO₂ concentration, drought, heat and weather instability. The new knowledge can be used to improve calculation models.

- The global climate change creates a need for a more precise description of the impact on our crops. The aim is to improve our knowledge of plant physiological responses when crops are exposed to stress and also to high levels of atmospheric CO₂ because this is one of the areas where the current models do not get it quite right, says Associate Professor Carl-Otto Ottosen from the Department of Food Science at Aarhus University – one of the partners in the EU project.

With a changing climate there is a need for a more intelligent, efficient and stable agricultural system. The new climate is expected to be volatile and unpredictable, which increases the need for the ability of computational models to predict which combinations of varieties, crop rotations, sowing times and other crop management factors are the best under the given circumstances. Such models would be of great benefit to farmers and plant breeders throughout the world.

The current models have uncertainties in a number of areas – especially when it comes to drought conditions and high temperatures. These two conditions often occur together and are expected to become more frequent in many areas of the world. At the same time, the models need to take into account the increased levels of atmospheric CO₂. The models lack accurate data on the combination of stress factors and this is the problem that Modcarbostress will help to solve.

Top-notch test facilities

Control of CO₂ under experimental conditions is not a commonplace facility. It is especially here that the Department of Food Science at Aarhus University will be contributing to the project via its excellent experimental facilities. The objective is to develop simple and cheap principles and solutions for manipulation of a combination of stress factors, including high CO₂ levels, under experimental conditions. Scientists at Aarhus University will base this on systematic analysis of the effect of CO₂ on the response of photosynthesis in wheat and rapeseed.

- With our advanced greenhouses, climate chambers and photosynthesis facilities, we have extensive experience in the control and measurement of responses to CO₂, explains Carl-Otto Ottosen, who together with colleagues from the University of Copenhagen and research institutions in the Netherlands, Wales, Germany and France will generate essential physiological data, develop models and control the models using data from field trials from other projects. At a meeting taking place on 21-22 July in Denmark the scientists will discuss the measurements.

The project Modcarbostress is an EU project funded by the ERA-net: FACCE JPI Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change. The three-year project has a budget of 8m DKK, financed via each country's own FACCE JPI resources. The project is led by the research institute INRA in France with partners from Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Britain, including Aarhus University and University of Copenhagen.

For further information please contact: Associate Professor Carl-Otto Ottosen, Department of Food Science, email: coo@food.au.dk, mobile: +45 2290 3105