Technology enables crops to take nitrogen from air

[cosmicalstorm]

This sounds almost too good to be true, but the research seems solid. Is there any reason to be skeptic about this that I am not seeing?

The University of Nottingham scientists have developed a new technology that would enable all of the world’s crops to take nitrogen from the air, instead of requiring expensive and environmentally damaging fertilizers.

Nitrogen fixation, the process by which nitrogen is converted to ammonia, is vital for plants to survive and grow. However, only a very small number of plants, most notably legumes (such as peas, beans and lentils) have the ability to fix (use) nitrogen from the atmosphere, with the help of nitrogen fixing bacteria.

The vast majority of plants have to obtain nitrogen from the soil, and for most crops currently being grown across the world, this also means reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.

Adding nitrogen-fixing bacteria to roots

Professor Edward Cocking, Director of The University of Nottingham’s Centre for Crop Nitrogen Fixation, has developed a unique method of putting nitrogen-fixing bacteria into the cells of plant roots.

His major breakthrough came when he found a specific strain of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in sugar cane known as G. diazotrophicus could intracellularly colonize all major crop plants.

This ground-breaking development potentially provides every cell in the plant with the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen. The implications for agriculture are enormous, as this new technology can provide much of the plant’s nitrogen needs, he suggests.

Known as N-Fix, the method is neither genetic modification nor bioengineering. It is naturally occurring nitrogen fixing bacteria that take up and use nitrogen from the air.

Applied to the cells of plants via the seed, it provides every cell in the plant with the ability to fix nitrogen. Plant seeds are coated with these bacteria to create a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship and naturally produce nitrogen.

N-Fix is a natural nitrogen seed coating that provides a sustainable solution to fertilizer overuse and nitrogen pollution. It is environmentally friendly and can be applied to all crops.

Over the last 10 years, The University of Nottingham has conducted a series of extensive research programs which have established proof of principal of the technology in the laboratory, growth rooms and glasshouses.

Nitrate pollution

A leading world expert in nitrogen and plant science, Professor Cocking has long recognized that there is a critical need to reduce nitrogen pollution caused by nitrogen based fertilizers. Nitrate pollution is a major problem as is also the pollution of the atmosphere by ammonia and oxides of nitrogen.

In addition, nitrate pollution is a health hazard and also causes oxygen-depleted “dead zones” in our waterways and oceans. A recent study estimates that that the annual cost of damage caused by nitrogen pollution across Europe is £60 billion to £280 billion.

Professor Cocking said: “Helping plants to naturally obtain the nitrogen they need is a key aspect of world food security.

“The world needs to unhook itself from its ever increasing reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizers produced from fossil fuels with its high economic costs, its pollution of the environment and its high energy costs.”

Making N-Fix available worldwide

The N-Fix technology has been licensed by The University of Nottingham to Azotic Technologies Ltd to develop and commercialise N-Fix globally on its behalf for all crop species.

Peter Blezard, CEO of Azotic Technologies added: “Agriculture has to change and N-Fix can make a real and positive contribution to that change.

It has enormous potential to help feed more people in many of the poorer parts of the world, while at the same time, dramatically reducing the amount of synthetic nitrogen produced in the world.”

Azotic is now working on field trials to produce robust efficacy data. This will be followed by seeking regulatory approval for N-Fix initially in the UK, Europe, USA, Canada and Brazil, with more countries to follow. It is anticipated that the N-Fix technology will be commercially available within the next two to three years.

The University of Nottingham’s Plant and Crop Sciences Division is internationally acclaimed as a centre for fundamental and applied research, underpinning its understanding of agriculture, food production and quality, and the natural environment. It also has one of the largest communities of plant scientists in the UK.

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressr ... -air-.aspx
http://www.kurzweilai.net/plant-bacteri ... om-the-air

[Simon_Jester]

Sheer genius if it performs as advertised; field studies are still underway, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

The biggest hitch is going to be infusing the nitrogen-fixing bacteria into the plants. Some plants may not like it, and the process may be too difficult/expensive for the aforementioned poor farmers to use consistently if it has to be repeated in every generation of the crop.

[Borgholio]

Or farmers could just rotate crops like they've been doing since the Roman period, rather than sucking the soil dry with the same crops year after year...

[Sea Skimmer]

Ah yes, revert farm productivity by two thousand years, very good idea. Relying purely on rotating crops will not get you very far at all compared to crop modern yields. The Romans ect... also still did make as extensive as possible use of fertilization, but it was all night soils and also an excellent way to contaminate the crops with diseases and cause endless plagues throughout most of human history.

If this concept works out even partially it will be a bloody miracle for crop productivity and the health of the worlds waterways at the same time.

[madd0ct0r]

it's a very clever solution.

[Borgholio]

I'm echoing the concern of how expensive it might be to the average farmer. Rotating crops is not a bad idea and it DOES help increase yields without the side effects of synthetic fertilizer. And yeah, I don't think they should use nightsoil.

[Broomstick]

The problem isn't the use of nightsoil, it's the use of unprocessed night soil. It either needs to be aged, or else properly sterilized. If it's obtained from a dense urban area it also needs to monitored for contamination by various things (pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, etc.) but those should be removed from the waste stream anyway prior to releasing anything into the environment.

Rotating crops or letting them lie fallow can help preserve fertility of the soil, but with the way modern crops are planted densely for high yields I'm not sure rotation stops depletion, it might only slow it down, and I doubt one season lying fallow is going to fully restore the soil. Planting a field with a nitrogen-fixing crop then plowing it under is more effective for improving the soil, but growing a crop only to "throw it away" isn't terribly attractive to the farmer in the modern world, especially not when the same effect can be had in a bag or barrel and much more quickly.

[Simon_Jester]

The problem is that unless you want billions of people to starve, we have to keep crop yields up to post-Green Revolution levels, no matter what else does or doesn't happen. Farming all available arable land on Earth by traditional measures has already been tried- that's what we've been doing for the past few thousand years. It's not going to feed more than about two billion people (maybe three?); we already know it won't because it never did before.

So traditional measures aren't going to cut it unless we modify some parts of the system. The Green Revolution tackled the problem by modifying the plants to grow super-fast, as long as they were supplied with outside nutrients and protected from competition and predation by herbicides and pesticides.

If we're going to replace that, we need to replace it with something that allows us to keep up the same yield. Expense is a concern, but the cost of a seed treatment can always be decreased over time, or methods can be found to make the treatment 'permanent' so that all crops descended from a given plant become nitrogen-fixing.

[Sea Skimmer]

The problem isn't the use of nightsoil, it's the use of unprocessed night soil. It either needs to be aged, or else properly sterilized. If it's obtained from a dense urban area it also needs to monitored for contamination by various things (pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, etc.) but those should be removed from the waste stream anyway prior to releasing anything into the environment.

Even processed night soil is still illegal for use on crops for human consumption for good reasons in the the US last I heard of, not all germs get killed by processing it on a reliable basis. Its also worse for the land in general because human waste contains a lot more then nitrogen, even if it isn't full of outright pollutants like heavy metals it picked up in the sewage system you mentioned. In any event the same nitrogen run off problem still exists with its use. You can use it on flowers, but a lot of human waste in the US ends up sprayed on the open desert to be rid of it.

Rotating crops or letting them lie fallow can help preserve fertility of the soil, but with the way modern crops are planted densely for high yields I'm not sure rotation stops depletion, it might only slow it down, and I doubt one season lying fallow is going to fully restore the soil.

Yes it would only slow it down. More importantly, even the best soil possible will not match the productivity of heavily fertilized crops. It just isn't possible, because spraying fertilizer on crops reduces the burden on the root system to supply the stuff and arbitrarily increases the availability to the maximum possible absorption of the plant. you can go even further with certain crops like tomatoes which can be wet fertilized, and directly absorb the fertilizer through the stem and leaves of the plants. This is also directly linked to why hydroponic farming works so damn well, with no soil at all.

Farming productivity in the US for cereal crops has gone up something like 300% just since 1950. Some of that is improved seeds, a damn lot of it is better chemicals. The soil quality certainly didn't go up, and yields in 1950 already trashed those of ancient times.

I'm echoing the concern of how expensive it might be to the average farmer. Rotating crops is not a bad idea and it DOES help increase yields without the side effects of synthetic fertilizer. And yeah, I don't think they should use nightsoil.

Does help, yeah it does help not nearly as much as fertilization. You think farmers want to pay all that money for fertilizer and are just stupidly ignorant of crop rotation if it could even come close to accomplishing the same results? Just how stupid do you think the average farmer is?

[Admiral Valdemar]

They need to tackle the P-bomb first before we start thinking of comfy farming for the long term. Being able to recycle nitrogen is a boon, but you need to apply this to water and the other nutrients as well to truly get sustainable agriculture. And electrify the farm equipment too.

[Ziggy Stardust]

"P-bomb"?

[Eternal_Freedom]

"P-bomb"?

Given the context I woudl imagine it's either Phosphorous or Population. Phosphorous is beomcing quite rare as I understand and having too many mouths to feed is clearly a problem.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So, I first saw this a few days ago, and babbled incoherently for a while, it is a game changer. An absolute fucking game changer. You dont just remove the need for nitrogen fertilizer. You remove the need for herbicides targeting nitrogen competitors. It is glorious.

The biggest hitch is going to be infusing the nitrogen-fixing bacteria into the plants. Some plants may not like it, and the process may be too difficult/expensive for the aforementioned poor farmers to use consistently if it has to be repeated in every generation of the crop.

That all depends on how the IP is handled, honestly. If Monsanto gets hold it it, we will have a problem. If the university hands out non-exclusive licenses, it becomes much easier.