Real-time emulation of leafy vegetables yield and quality response to 2 °C warming in northeast China

Vegetables provide essential parts of healthy, balanced diets in our daily life. Climatic warming is challenging the global vegetable productions, but realistic real-time evidences, especially in temperate regions, are still lacking. In this study, we developed two large, customized, fully artificial climate-controlled chambers capable of replicating the complexity of natural environmental fluctuations. We simulated two temperature treatments - the observed real-time daily average temperature over the past 32 years in northeast China, and an arbitrary increase of +2 °C for each day - on two leafy vegetables, pak choi and lettuce.

The results show that warming shortened the growing-season length by 1-2 days for both vegetables. But on growth, the two vegetables differed greatly. The canopy development of lettuce was accelerated, with an increase in leaf area index, efficiency of photosynthesis, and final yield (+35.2%). Pak choi had only 6.8% of yield increase. Furthermore, we observed no significant change in the overall quality level of the two vegetables, although individual components varied.

The real-time evidence imply the warming benefit to vegetable production in relatively cool conditions and future positive adaptations. © 2025 Society of Chemical Industry.