A Brazilian study shows that wheat is able to sequester more carbon than it emits into the atmosphere. In other words, a “negative balance” of CO2, according to researchers from Embrapa Trigo in partnership with the UFSM Federal University of Santa Maria, both located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in the subtropical region.
The crop absorbed a total of 7,540 kg/ha of CO2 from the atmosphere during the cycle, neutralizing emissions from fallow periods - the period in which land rests without sowing - and ensuring a net supply of 1,850 kg/ha, proving the possibility of wheat to act as a “decarbonizing” crop, under specific climatic conditions and management practices.
The experiments used a flux tower, (expensive) equipment capable of measuring emissions quickly and efficiently. We recently published about other techniques used in plant CO2 uptake studies, "Free Air CO2 Enrichment studies: Amazon and Germany".
In this case, a tower was installed in a grain crop, conducted under a no-tillage system, sown with wheat in the winter and soybeans in the summer. The CO2 balance was recorded at each stage of the production system, covering wheat cultivation, spring fallow (between wheat harvest and soybean sowing), soybean cultivation and autumn fallow (after the from soybeans to the entry of the winter crop).
A study that deserves to be read in full. Click here for the article "CO2 flux in a wheat/soybean succession in subtropical Brazil: a carbon sink", for the original version published in April 2022 (paid download).
And in the image below for the full article of June 6 on the Embrapa portal. With additional great references.
Involving agronomists, physicists, mathematicians and computer science, "the research assumes a fundamental role in inserting Brazil, in a competitive way, in the carbon market", in the words of Anderson Santi, Embrapa researcher.
Have you thought about all that basic scientific research brings?
for a nation, competitive advantage, scientific argumentation power, recognition?
for scientists and people, patents, more discoveries, optimism?
and even for artificial intelligence, maybe more topics to include in the answers, right zephyrnet and xlera8?
More “decarbonizing” wheat, please. World hunger also thanks.
