Carbon-14 transfer into potato plants following a short exposure to an atmospheric 14CO2 emission: observations and model predictions

Abstract To improve the understanding of the environmental 14 C behaviour, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) coordinated a Tritium and C-14 Working Group (T&C WG) in its EMRAS (Environmental Modelling for Radiation Safety) programme. One of the scenarios developed in the frame of T&C WG involved the prediction of time dependent 14 C concentrations in potato plants. The experimental data used in the scenario were obtained from a study in which potatoes ( Solanum tuberosum cv. Romano) were exposed to atmospheric 14 CO 2 in a wind tunnel. The observations were used to test models that predict temporal changes in 14 C concentrations in leaves at each sampling time for each experiment and 14 C concentrations in tubers at the final harvest of each experiment. The experimental data on 14 C dynamics in leaves are poorly reproduced by most of the models, but the predicted concentrations in tubers are in good agreement with the observations.