Annual Report for Changing Climate and Potential Impacts on Potato Yield and Quality CHIP

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) features very large sink organs for carbohydrates (Farrar and Williams, 1991) and uses an apoplastic mechanism for phloem loading based on a sucrose transporter (Riesmeier et al., 1994). These are important pre-requisites for a large CO2 response. In fact, substantial stimulation of tuber yield has been observed in a number of CO2 enrichment experiments (Wheeler et al., 1994; Mackowiak and Wheeler, 1996; Miglietta et al., 1998). Following these considerations the experimental activity performed by CeSIA within the CHIP Project was designed to analyse in detail the effect of elevated CO2 on the development, growth, yield and quality of potato under field conditions. For this purpose, potato plants were grown in the field under elevated CO2 using a series of FACE (Free Air CO2 Enrichment) rings allowed exposing the plants to ambient and 550 ?mol mol-1 CO2 concentrations.