Carbon Sequestration Potential of Agricultural Crops in Designed Plant Growth Chamber

Aim: Climate change is becoming one of the major global environment concerns. The earth’s climate is predicted to change due to release of greenhouse gases and there is an urgent need for stabilizing the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in atmosphere. Soil carbon sequestration is considered as one of the promising options for mitigating the climate change impacts. The aim of the current study is to assess the carbon sequestration potential of the crops of the agricultural importance at elevated levels of CO2 in designed plant growth chamber.

Place and Duration of Study: School of Environment and Sustainable Development, Central University of Gujarat, India, between November 2013 to June 2014.

Methodology: Plant growth chamber has been designed of dimension 66×24×25 inches for assessing the carbon sequestration potential of the selected agricultural crops Triticum aestivum, Sorghum vulgare and Vigna radiata in green house. The plants were grown using the pot culture technique in mycorrhizal soil. The CO2 was induced into the plant growth chamber after every five days at the rate of 5 Litres per minute to maintain the level of carbon dioxide upto 500±50 ppm into the plant growth chamber and plant’s growth was studied. Soil’s physico-chemical parameters, plant’s morphological and biochemical characteristics were studied in each plant.

Results: The study reveals the carbon content estimated in the form of organic carbon, total carbon and organic matter was high in Vigna radiata at elevated CO2 levels, than ambient levels, followed by Sorghum vulagare and Triticum aestivum. Also organic nitrogen accumulation was increased in response of elevated CO2 conditions, highest being found in samples of Vigna radiata. Morphological and biochemical characteristics of crops also got influenced under elevated CO2 levels. Plant height and plant biomass accumulation was found to be higher in Triticum aestivum, followed by Sorghum vulgare and Vigna radiata, whereas shoot and root length was measured to be highest in Sorghum vulgare, then in Vigna radiata and Triticum aestivum. Biochemical analysis revealed that total chlorophyll content was highest in Sorghum vulgare as compared to other two species at elevated conditions. Protein content increased in response to elevated CO2 conditions, it was found to be highest in Triticum aestivum.

Conclusion: It can be inferred from this study that CO2 has influence on both soil’s and properties of plant’s growing in it. It was observed that C3 crops Triticum aestivum and Vigna radiata were more efficient in using the elevated carbon dioxide levels and hence will prove useful in mitigating the impacts of climate change with the help of sequestration of carbon both in plant and soil. Sorghum vulgare being a C4 also showed potential for carbon sequestration and can be considered for the same after further more research.