Vol. 12, Special Issue 10 (2023)

Author(s):
Honnayya, Sreenivas AG, Kisan B, Harischandra Nayak and Saroja N

Abstract:
Elevated atmospheric CO₂ concentrations will cause plants to grow faster, lower nitrogen content per unit of plant tissue and generate higher carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratios. We hypothesize that production of transgenic proteins were reduced, thus the loss in cry protein was mitigated by additional application of ‘N’ fertilizer. Based on the quantity of cry toxin produced in reference plot at 60 DAS was considered as a standard which later upon subsequent observations revealed that, in elevated CO₂, plants the cry toxin content in eCO₂ condition has increased over reference plot after the application of compensatory dose of N fertilizer. The eCO₂ treatments showed increased expression of Cry1Ac (2.88 and 2.10 µg/g) and Cry2Ab (53.48 and 43.77 µg/g) which was compensated by additional application of ‘N’ (6.14 gram of urea/plant) over the reference plot at 90 and 120 DAS respectively. The use of transgenic plants is becoming increasingly important and will continue to be so in the next decades. At the same time, atmospheric CO₂ increase will affect the effectiveness of this strategy. These observations have implications not only for agricultural use of transgenic plants, but also for the ecological consequences of transfer of Bt toxins to closely related wild plant genotypes.