New Technology Allows Crops to Take in Nitrogen from the Air

Nitrogen is an essential macronutrient needed by all plants to thrive. A nitrogen-deficient plant is generally small and develops slowly because it lacks the nitrogen it requires to manufacture adequate structural and genetic materials.

Although 78% of our atmosphere is nitrogen gas, this form of nitrogen must be transformed to usable forms before it is available for plant uptake. However, only a very small number of plants, most notably legumes (such as peas and beans) have the ability to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere with the help of nitrogen fixing bacteria. The vast majority of crops obtain their nitrogen from the soil and this means a reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.

A major new technology has been developed by The University of Nottingham, which enables all crops to take nitrogen from the air rather than expensive and environmentally damaging fertilizers. The method discovered by Professor Edward Cocking involves 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 which he discovered 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.