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Quantifying impacts of enhancing photosynthesis on crop yield

Nature Plants volume 5, pages 380–388 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Enhancing photosynthesis is widely accepted as critical to advancing crop yield. However, yield consequences of photosynthetic manipulation are confounded by feedback effects arising from interactions with crop growth, development dynamics and the prevailing environment. Here, we developed a cross-scale modelling capability that connects leaf photosynthesis to crop yield in a manner that addresses the confounding factors. The model was validated using data on crop biomass and yield for wheat and sorghum from diverse field experiments. Consequences for yield were simulated for major photosynthetic enhancement targets related to leaf CO2 and light energy capture efficiencies, and for combinations of these targets. Predicted impacts showed marked variation and were dependent on the photosynthetic enhancement, crop type and environment, especially the degree of water limitation. The importance of interdependencies operating across scales of biological organization was highlighted, as was the need to increase understanding and modelling of the photosynthesis–stomatal conductance link to better quantify impacts of enhancing photosynthesis.

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Fig. 1: Cross-scale modelling framework connecting the diurnal canopy photosynthesis–stomatal conductance module with crop growth and development models.
Fig. 2: Simulated diurnal responses of C3 and C4 CO2 assimilation (A), hourly transpiration (Thr) rates and stomatal conductance for water vapour (gsH2O) for non-limiting and limiting water situations.
Fig. 3: Predicted crop biomass and yield for C3 wheat and C4 sorghum plotted against field-observed data from a diverse validation set of detailed field experiments12,18.
Fig. 4: Baseline simulation of C3 wheat and C4 sorghum yield using 116 years of available weather data.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study can be found in the related cited articles and/or from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The compiled code and files used in the validation, baseline and photosynthetic manipulation simulations are freely available for download at https://github.com/QAAFI/DCaPST.

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Acknowledgements

This research was conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis (CE1401000015) and funded by the Australian Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis, Centre for Crop Science, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Alex Wu, Graeme L. Hammer & Al Doherty

  2. ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis, Division of Plant Sciences, Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Susanne von Caemmerer & Graham D. Farquhar

Authors
  1. Alex Wu
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  4. Susanne von Caemmerer
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  5. Graham D. Farquhar
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Contributions

A.W., G.L.H., S.v.C. and G.D.F. designed the study and contributed to the development of the cross-scale model, A.W. constructed the model and A.D. engineered the software. A.W. undertook model testing and refinement. A.W., G.L.H., S.v.C. and G.D.F. undertook analysis of simulation results and contributed to writing and revising the paper.

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Correspondence to Alex Wu.

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Supplementary Text, Supplementary Figures 1 and 2, Supplementary Tables 1–7, Supplementary Figures 3–5, Supplementary Table 8 and Supplementary References.

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Wu, A., Hammer, G.L., Doherty, A. et al. Quantifying impacts of enhancing photosynthesis on crop yield. Nat. Plants 5, 380–388 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-019-0398-8

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