Laboratory studies of some environmental variables controlling sulfur emissions from plants

Several trace sulfur gases that can have a significant influence on atmospheric chemistry are emitted from biological systems. In order to begin to address biological questions on the mechnisms of production of such gases, laboratory-scale experiments have been developed that reproduce such emissions under controlled conditions. Using a flux chamber technique, flats containing soil, or soil plus plants were sampled for the net fluxes of sulfur gases. The major sulfur gas emitted from all the plants tested (corn, alfalfa, and wheat) was dimethyl sulfide (DMS). Alfalfa and wheat also emitted lesser amounts of methanethiol, variable amounls of hydrogen sulfide, and in some experiments wheat emitted carbon disulfide. The use of a plant incubator allowed a systematic study of the effects of variables such as temperature, photon flux, and carbon dioxide levels, on these emissions. Fluxes of all the emitted sulfur gases increased exponentially with increasing air temperature, and increased with increasing photon flux up to a saturation level of \~300 E/m^–2 sec^-1. Three to four-fold changes in DMS flux were observed during light to dark or dark to light transitions. By varying the CO₂ content of the chamber flush gas, it was shown that the observed sulfur fluxes from corn and alfalfa were not related to the CO₂ concentration. Growing these crop plants through holes in a Teflon soil-covering film allowed a separate determination of soil and foliage emissions and substantiation of the light dependent uptake of COS by growing vegetation observed in previous field studies.