Was more plant food a bad thing?

Every time I saw someone talk about CO2 gases and such, I would always reply with "plant food". Sometimes, I would make it even more snarky "Why do you hate plant food?" or painfully obvious "We breath out plant food.", but in general, my attempt was to point out that increases in CO2 gases is a good thing for plants.

How good?

Well, it is a method to increase yields in plant growing greenhouses, when you have accounted for all other methods. If you put 2 identical greenhouses next to each other and used CO2 enrichment in one, that one will have increased yields.

Commercial greenhouses are aware of this and commonly use CO2 generators to maximize production. One thing to keep in mind while designing a CO2 system is that yields will only increase if CO2 is your ‘limiting factor’ (for more on ‘limiting factors’ and ‘Leibig’s Barrel’, see our previous post here). This means that if all your other variables are not optimal (light, fertilizer, temp/humidity, pH, etc.) you will not achieve the benefits of increased CO2 levels.

~ source: Carbon Dioxide Enrichment | Managing CO2 in Your Grow Space

So, it should come as no surprise that over the last 17 years of measuring, there has been a significant increase of tree foliage in the world, because like having identical greenhouses, the Earth is somewhat similar decade after decade.

The world is literally a greener place than it was twenty years ago, and data from NASA satellites has revealed a counterintuitive source for much of this new foliage. A new study shows that China and India—the world’s most populous countries—are leading the increase in greening on land. The effect comes mostly from ambitious tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries.

• China and India Lead the Way in Greening

The Earth is currently experiencing a 2+% growth in tree coverage each decade.

Ranga Myneni of Boston University and colleagues first detected the greening phenomenon in satellite data from the mid-1990s, but they did not know whether human activity was a chief cause. They then set out to track the total amount of Earth’s land area covered by vegetation and how it changed over time.

So, basically, some researchers from Boston University accidentally discovered that there were more trees and decided to start tracking the change over time to see if it was actually happening and why it was happening.

“When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Now with the MODIS data, we see that humans are also contributing.”

The article goes on to claim, that China and India saw their increase due to changes in their farming techniques and plans for cutting pollution. This accounts for around 80% of their increased in greening.

China’s outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes in large part from its programs to conserve and expand forests (about 42 percent of the greening contribution). These programs were developed in an effort to reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution, and climate change.

That's great and everything, but....

That doesn't explain the increases in Alaska, Siberia and areas outside of the farm belt in the USA. These ares show what looks like to my eyes, a 12-16+% increase per decade. And, as the article points out, India and China are a little bit lacking in green areas in the first place. So, increasing green areas, where it was already forest in the USA, would seem like a major event.

Since I can't find a better image of North America, I can only guess what that means.

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