Effect Of Enhanced Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide On The Nutritional Quality Of Selected Dietary Vegetables

Besides increasing global temperature, enhanced atmospheric carbon dioxide is affecting physcio-chemical and nutritional characteristics of crops and vegetables.In order to evaluate the hypothesis that climate change is threatening food quality, the effect of enhanced atmospheric CO2 on nutritional, elemental and fatty acid composition of dietary vegetables has been investigated. Dietary vegetables including tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum), chili (Capsicum annuum), onion (Allium cepa), okra (Abelmoschus esculentus), cucumber (Cucumis sativus), spinach (Spinacia oleracea), carrot (Daucus carota), pea (Pisum sativum), cauliflower (Brassica oleracea), radish (Raphanus sativus), turnip (Brassica rapa) and eggplant (Solanum melongena) were grown in ambient (400 AE’ASmol mol-1) and elevated (1000 AE’ASmol mol-1) concentration of CO2 in green houses. Edible parts of the vegetables (fruit/flower/tuber/seeds or leaves) were collected on maturity and analyzed.Enhanced CO2 has largely disturbed the nutritional balance of vegetables.A significant increase in carbohydrates and crude fiber at the cost of protein, vitamin C and fat contents was observed.Elements behaved inconsistently with a general decreasing trend.The results revealed that with a substantial increase in yield, nutritional quality of dietary vegetables unfavorably altered under CO2 enrichment with accumulated sugars and diminished proteins and vitamin C.Plants were examined for their physical characteristics and chemical composition.Previously known standard procedures were applied for chemical analysis. Samples were analyzed in triplicate and standard deviation was calculated, StudentÂ�fs t test was applied on data using SPSS 16. Results were quoted as significant at (P.0.05), non-significant (ns) at P>0.1 and trend at 0.05