Effects of acidity of simulated rain and its joint action with ambient ozone on measures of biomass and yield in soybean

Technical Report · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1983

OSTI ID:5730082

Troiano, J; Colavito, L; Heller, L; McCune, D C; Jacobson, J S

An experiment was performed to determine whether the presence of ozone modified the effects of acidity of simulated rain on growth and yield of soybean. Beeson, a type II cultivar, was grown in field chambers and exposed to simulated rain at 3 levels of acidity. Each level was applied to plants grown either in unfiltered ambient air or in charcoal filtered ambient air. An interaction between acidity of simulated rain and filtration of ambient air on growth and yield was present. The difference in total dry mass between plants grown in filtered and unfiltered chambers increased acidity, of simulated rain treatments. In filtered air, vegetative mass was only slightly decreased with increased acidity, whereas reproductive mass was increased with increased acidity. In unfiltered air-vegetative mass decreased with increased acidity but reproductive mass was only slightly decreased at pH 2.8. Components of yield also were differentially affected by acidity, which indicates the need for a better understanding of the sensitivities of different developmental processes of the plant to each kind of pollutant. The apparent interaction between ozone and acidic-rain indicates that further investigations on the combination must be conducted before acidic rain effects on plant growth can be accurately assessed in ambient atmospheres.

• Research Organization: Boyce Thompson Inst. for Plant Research, Ithaca, NY (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5730082
• Report Number(s): PB-88-101654/XAB
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

500200* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
560300 -- Chemicals Metabolism & Toxicology
63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.
ACID RAIN
AIR POLLUTION
ATMOSPHERIC PRECIPITATIONS
BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS
BIOMASS
ENERGY SOURCES
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
FILTERS
FOOD
GROWTH
NAPAP
OZONE
PLANT GROWTH
PLANTS
POLLUTION
RAIN
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
SIMULATION
SOYBEANS
VEGETABLES
YIELDS