Rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are causing cucumber plants to break down fungicides up to 65 percent faster.
April 24, 2026
Original Paper
Elevated CO₂ promotes the translocation and degradation of strobilurin fungicides in cucumber via coupled physiological and metabolic pathways
SSRN · 6631512
The Takeaway
Farmers rely on specific chemical schedules to protect their crops from fungus and disease. High CO2 levels accelerate the internal metabolism of cucumber plants, which causes them to process and destroy these protective chemicals much more quickly. This means that as climate change progresses, the standard dose of pesticides may no longer be enough to keep food crops safe. The chemicals also move through the plant differently, potentially ending up in parts of the vegetable we eat. This discovery shows that a changing atmosphere is actively altering the chemistry of our food supply.
From the abstract
Elevated atmospheric CO₂ is a prominent consequence of global climate change, which substantially alters plant physiological processes and further modulates the environmental fate of pesticides in agricultural ecosystems, thereby threatening agricultural product safety and ecological health. Nevertheless, the physiological and biochemical mechanisms underlying elevated CO₂-regulated uptake, translocation and metabolism of fungicides in crop plants remain largely unclear. In the present study, cu