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Title: Environmental and societal consequences of a possible CO/sub 2/-induced climate change. Volume II, Part 9. Alleviation of environmental stress on renewable resource productivity

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6815708· OSTI ID:6815708

It is pointed out that temperature and water stress are the key factors that will be influenced by a rise in ambient CO/sub 2/ concentration. Improvement of the capacity of crop plants to withstand water and temperature stress will require an undergirding effort in basic research, to support required advances in plant breeding and development of novel crop management systems. The most important considerations for future research on environmental stress in crops are: the need for interdisciplinary approaches in all aspects of stress research; the need for centralized stress testing capabilities; plant-breeding, the long-term solution with greatest potential benefit and least cost; improvement in management techniques, becoming more effective as increased attention is directed to the management of specific genotypes; the need for understanding of more stress effects closer to the optimum than to lethality; the need to optimize rather than maximize production; the need for understanding different stress effects during different, critical developmental stages; the need for development of usable, physiologically-based crop models to serve as predictive tools for agronomists and breeders; the recognition that improvement options in annual crops are greater than in perennial crops; efforts to culture perennial crops as annuals as a means of avoiding winter stress; and the need for a major effort to devise techniques to shorten the breeding cycle in perennials so that genetic solutions can be more readily employed.

Research Organization:
Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AS01-79EV10019
OSTI ID:
6815708
Report Number(s):
DOE/EV/10019-9; ON: DE83001006
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English