Effects of Elevated Atmospheric CO(2) Concentration on the Infection of Rice Blast and Sheath Blight.

ABSTRACT The effect of elevated atmospheric CO(2) concentration on rice blast and sheath blight disease severity was studied in the field in northern Japan for 3 years. With free-air CO(2) enrichment (FACE), rice plants were grown in ambient and elevated ( approximately 200 to 280 mumol mol(-1) above ambient) CO(2) concentrations, and were artificially inoculated with consist of Magnaporthe oryzae. Rice plants grown in an elevated CO(2) concentration were more susceptible to leaf blast than those in ambient CO(2) as indicated by the increased number of leaf blast lesions. Plants grown under elevated CO(2) concentration had lower leaf silicon content, which may have contributed to the increased susceptibility to leaf blast under elevated CO(2) concentrations. In contrast to leaf blast, panicle blast severity was unchanged by the CO(2) enrichment under artificial inoculation, whereas it was slightly but significantly higher under elevated CO(2) concentrations in a spontaneous rice blast epidemic. For naturally occurring epidemics of the sheath blight development in rice plants, the percentage of diseased plants was higher under elevated as opposed to ambient CO(2) concentrations. However, the average height of lesions above the soil surface was similar between the treatments. One hypothesis is that the higher number of tillers observed under elevated CO(2) concentrations may have increased the chance for fungal sclerotia to adhere to the leaf sheath at the water surface. Consequently, the potential risks for infection of leaf blast and epidemics of sheath blight would increase in rice grown under elevated CO(2) concentration.