From the CO2Science Archive: With fall soon upon us Canadians will get to enjoy, for a few brief weeks, local tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes unlike the mealy tasteless Styrofoam-like imposters trucked in from far away that we have to put up with the rest of the year. (As Wikipedia explains, “The poor taste and lack of sugar in modern garden and commercial tomato varieties resulted from breeding tomatoes to ripen uniformly red.” So it's not exactly a state secret.) And we are pleased to report that Lycopersicon esculentum P. Mill., otherwise known as garden tomatoes, respond extremely well to the extra CO2 added to the air by the trucks their inferior rivals drove in on.

From 1984 to 2013 there were 54 studies that showed tomatoes grew on average 32.4% better with 300 ppm extra CO2, there were 40 studies showing an average 40.3% improvement at 600 ppm and there were 9 studies showing an average 46.8% improvement with an extra 900 ppm CO2. So by all means buy (or grow) local when they’re in season, and when they’re not and your produce comes in by truck, thank the driver for adding some extra CO2 to the air to make next year’s crop that much healthier.