Interactive Impacts of Temperature and Elevated CO2 on Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) Root and Shoot Morphology and Growth

• Published in: Horticulturae Vol. 7; no. 5; p. 112
• Main Authors: Barickman, T. Casey, Olorunwa, Omolayo J., Sehgal, Akanksha, Walne, C. Hunt, Reddy, K. Raja, Gao, Wei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.05.2021
• Subjects: Abiotic stress; anthocyanin; Anthocyanins; Biomass; Carbon dioxide; Climate change; Crops; Environmental conditions; epicuticular leaf waxes; Experiments; genovese; Growth rate; High temperature; Irrigation; Leaf area; Morphology; Nitrogen balance; nitrogen balance index; Ocimum basilicum; Plant growth; root length; Seeds; Temperature effects; United States > US; Mississippi
• ISSN: 2311-7524; 2311-7524
• DOI: 10.3390/horticulturae7050112

Recent evidence suggests that the effects of temperature significantly affect the growth and development of basil plants with detrimental impacts on yield. The current research investigated the interactive effects of varying temperature and CO2 levels on the shoot and root morphology and growth of early and late-season basil plants. Basil plants were subjected to control (30/22 °C), low (20/12 °C), and high (38/30 °C) temperature under ambient (420 μL L−1) and elevated (720 μL L−1) CO2 concentrations. Decreasing the temperature to 20/12 °C caused more adverse effects on the morphological traits of the early-season basil. Relative to the control treatments, low- and high-temperature stresses decreased 71 and 14% in marketable fresh mass, respectively. Basil exhibited an increase in plant height, node and branch numbers, specific leaf area, anthocyanin and nitrogen balance index, root tips, and root crossings when subjected to high-temperature stress. Furthermore, elevated CO2 affected many morphological features compared to ambient CO2 concentrations. The findings of this study suggest that varying the growth temperature of basil plants would more significantly impact the shoot and root morphologies and growth rates of basil than increasing the CO2 concentrations, which ameliorated the adverse impacts of temperature stress.