U. Hertstein et al., Climatic conditions and concentrations of carbon dioxide and air pollutants during 'ESPACE-wheat' experiments, EUR J AGRON, 10(3-4), 1999, pp. 163-169
A major objective of the ESPACE-wheat programme was to perform by means of
open-top chambers (OTCs) 'standardised' experimental investigations of spri
ng wheat responses to increased atmospheric CO2 and O-3 concentrations and
to other environmental stresses at different locations in Europe, represent
ing a broad range of different climatic conditions. From 1994 to 1996 a tot
al number of 25 OTC experiments were carried out. In addition, four growth
chamber experiments focusing on key physiological processes of wheat growth
in CO2-enriched air were performed. According to the specific needs for su
bsequent modelling purposes, environmental data were collected during exper
iments, i.e. air temperature, global radiation, humidity and trace gas conc
entrations. In the present paper results of these measurements are summaris
ed. It was shown, that the OTC-experiments covered a considerable range of
growing season mean-air-temperatures (13.0-23.4 degrees C) and global irrad
iances (10.8-18.1 MJ m(-2) d(-1)), the most important driving variables for
crop growth simulation models. Mean concentrations of CO2 and O-3 in ambie
nt air and in different treatments illustrated the observed variability of
trace gas exposures between different experiments. Implications for subsequ
ent analyses of biological response data are discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier S
cience B.V. All rights reserved.