ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
This article is part of the Research TopicBiochemical and Physiological Insights into Plant Adaptation and Resilience Under Abiotic StressesView all 17 articles
Spinach yield and quality response to elevated soil carbon dioxide
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China
- 2University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- 3Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Beijing, China
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With the widespread implementation of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects, assessing the associated environmental risks has become increasingly important, particularly concerning crop responses to soil carbon dioxide (CO2) leakage. While previous studies have examined plant responses to soil CO2 stress, the implications for crop nutritional quality remain poorly characterized. This study aims to quantify the effects of CO2 leakage from CCS on nutritional indicators in leafy vegetables. A pot experiment, with four replicates per treatment, including a control group (CK) and a CO2 leakage treatment group (1500 g·m-2·d-1, G1500), was conducted in Shunyi, Beijing (autumn 2023). It assessed spinach yield and quality under elevated soil CO2 conditions, with emphasis on vitamin C, vitamin E, cellulose, and oxalate content. The results revealed that prolonged high-concentration CO2 stress severely inhibited spinach growth, reducing leaf area, aboveground fresh weight, and root weight by 92.76%, 93.46%, and 95.83%, respectively. The root-shoot ratio declined from 1.04 to 0.63, accompanied by root thinning and shortening. Chlorophyll b decreased by 35.48%, indicating impaired photosynthesis. Conversely, despite a marked increase in the concentrations of vitamin C (185.47%), vitamin E (131.45%), and cellulose (315.03%), along with a 43.08% decrease in oxalate, the severe reduction in biomass resulted in an overall decline in the total nutrient yield per plant. These findings demonstrate that soil CO2 leakage markedly inhibits growth and reduces total nutrient yield in leafy crops, highlighting critical challenges to agricultural sustainability and food security under large-scale CCS deployment.
Keywords: spinach, Simulated experiment, Quality change, CO2 leakage, Carbon capture and storage
Received: 28 May 2025; Accepted: 27 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Huang, Zhang and Ma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xueyan Zhang, xyzhang@igsnrr.ac.cn
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