SEASONAL FINE-ROOT BIOMASS DEVELOPMENT OF SOUR ORANGE TREES GROWN IN ATMOSPHERES OF AMBIENT AND ELEVATED CO2 CONCENTRATION

Sour orange trees have been grown from the seedling stage out-of-doors at Phoenix, Arizona, USA, in open-top enclosures with clear plastic walls for 3.5 years. For the last 3 years of this period, half of the trees have been continuously exposed to air enriched with CO2 to 300-mu-mol mol-1 above the ambient concentration. At 2-month intervals over the last 12 months, we have determined the fine-root biomass in the top 0.4 m of the soil profile beneath the trees. Results from both treatments define a single relationship between fine-root biomass and trunk cross-sectional area. The data also show the CO2-enriched trees to have approximately 2.3 times more fine-root biomass in this soil layer than the trees grown in ambient air.