Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1427086

Temperature and Elevated CO2 Alter Soybean Seed Yield and Quality, Exhibiting Transgenerational Effects on Seedling Emergence and Vigor

Provisionally accepted
Naflath Thenveettil Naflath Thenveettil 1Raju Bheemanahalli Raju Bheemanahalli 1Krishna N. Reddy Krishna N. Reddy 2Wei Gao Wei Gao 3K. Raja Reddy K. Raja Reddy 1*
  • 1 Mississippi State University, Starkville, Mississippi, United States
  • 2 Midwest Area, Agricultural Research Service (USDA), Peoria, Colorado, United States
  • 3 Colorado Climate Center, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Environmental conditions play a prime role in the reproductive performance of plants, and they can extend into progenies. A study was conducted to examine the effect of temperature (22/14°C (low), 30/22°C (optimum), and 38/30°C (high)), and CO2 (420 ppm (ambient; aCO2) and 720 ppm (elevated; eCO2)) on seed yield, quality, and transgenerational seedling vigor traits of soybean cultivars (DS25-1 and DS31-243). A significant temperature effect was recorded among yield and quality attributes. At high-temperature treatment, the 100-seed weights of DS25-1 and DS31-243 declined by 40% and 24%, respectively, over the optimum temperature at aCO2. In both cultivars, the high temperature decreased the harvest index by 70% under both aCO2 and eCO2, compared to the optimum temperature at aCO2. High temperature increased the protein content by 8% and decreased the oil content by 2% over optimum under aCO2. Maximum sucrose (7.5%) and stachyose (3.8%) accumulation were observed at low temperatures and eCO2. The linoleic and linolenic acids decreased by 28% and 43% upon an increase in temperature from optimum to high temperature under aCO2. However, high temperature upregulated oleic acid accumulation by 63% compared to optimum temperature. Significant temperature and CO2 effects were observed in progenies with the highest maximum seedling emergence (80%), lesser time to 50% emergence (5.5 days), and higher seedling vigor from parents grown at low-temperature treatment under eCO2. Our findings suggest that parental stress can have a significant impact on the development of offspring. This indicates that epigenetic regulation or memory repose may be at play.

    Keywords: CO2, seed yield, Seed quality, seedling vigor response index, temperature, transgenerational effect

    Received: 03 May 2024; Accepted: 11 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Thenveettil, Bheemanahalli, Reddy, Gao and Reddy. 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: K. Raja Reddy, Mississippi State University, Starkville, 39762, Mississippi, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.