I know that a greenhouse is not air tight so I imagine it breathes somewhat and exchanges gas with the outside. However, I also assume that it’s going to use up the co2 in it for plant growth. How does it not run out? I think you could vent it, but then wouldn’t that cool it off and thus defeat the purpose of a greenhouse? All my web searches either give climate change facts or co2 supplementation by farmers.
Plants don’t actually use up all that much CO2. An entire greenhouse worth of plants wouldn’t even consume as much CO2 as your body produces. Most oxygen produced on earth and CO2 consumed is done by algae. Land plants like trees can sequester more CO2 because they grow larger and use it to build their bodies but they do so slowly over the course of years.
So I guess plants don’t suffocate in greenhouses for the same reason that you wouldn’t if you sat around in a greenhouse. There is enough air infiltration through cracks and gaps in the walls that sufficient air gets exchanged to keep it breathable.
To put some math around CO2 usage:
The entire structure of plants is built primarily from CO2. A tomato plant and fruit grows from seeding to maturity in about 60 days, and will yield about a kilogram of dry plant mass.
That mass will be about 20% carbon, meaning each plant would need to uptake a net 3.3 grams of carbon - 12.3 grams of CO2 per day. A person exhales around 1Kg of CO2 per day, or about as much as would be needed to supply 81 tomato plants.
Thats more because of total biomass, and the difference is we’re basically a ball of water.