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Advanced Agricultural Instrumentation pp 39–91Cite as

Instrumentation for the Measurement of CO2 Assimilation by Crop Leaves

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Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((NSSE,volume 111))

Abstract

Growth of crops, in terms of carbon, organic matter or dry-weight gain, has traditionally been measured by sampling, drying, weighing and chemical analysis of the dried material. While this technique is adequate for assessing long-term changes, its value is limited where interest centers either on short-term dry-matter gain, i.e. intervals of days, hours or minutes, or on contributions made by individual organs, e.g. the flag leaves of cereals. The shortest periods over which statistically significant change in plant dry-weight may be resolved, even by extrapolation with statistical regression techniques (1), usually exceeds one day. Since water content is highly variable, plants must be dried before weighing, thus making the method unavoidably destructive. Therefore, production may only be estimated by sampling from a population, so introducing a random error which will decrease sensitivity. Interest in the relation of photosynthetic activity to productivity centers on carbon gain. Direct measurement of CO2 uptake provides an alternative method of measuring productivity with six important advantages over measurements of dry-weight change:

  1. 1)

    It is instantaneous, measuring production in vivo on the time-scale of both in vitro studies of sub-cellular photosynthetic processes and of in vivo slow chlorophyll fluorescence transients (2).

  2. 2)

    It is non-destructive, thus the same leaf may be measured throughout a treatment or throughout its life.

  3. 3)

    The immediate effects of sudden changes in microclimate or experimental treatments on photosynthetic productivity may be determined, where change in dry-weight gain would require days before an effect might be demonstrated. Transient effects of, for example, environmental change or herbicide application on production may be revealed by measurement of gas exchange, yet be of too short a duration to be apparent in dry-weight changes.

  4. 4)

    It accounts for all photosynthetic C-gain, including the large fraction of up to 30% of photosynthate which may be lost by root exudation (3).

  5. 5)

    It allows separate investigation of individual leaves, parts of leaves or other photosynthetic organs.

  6. 6)

    It allows separation of photosynthetic gain from respiratory losses of carbon.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Steve P. Long

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  1. Steve P. Long
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Arizone, 85721, Tucson, Arizona, USA

    William G. Gensler

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© 1986 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht

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Long, S.P. (1986). Instrumentation for the Measurement of CO2 Assimilation by Crop Leaves. In: Gensler, W.G. (eds) Advanced Agricultural Instrumentation. NATO ASI Series, vol 111. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4404-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4404-6_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-8459-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-4404-6

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