Fertilization of crops using nitrogen fertilizers has dramatically improved the yield of food per acre around the world. However, the law of unintended consequences also results in pollution like oxides of nitrogen in the air and soil. Scientists have known that certain varieties of crops such as legumes have the natural capacity to fix atmospheric nitrogen for use. The cause has been recently discovered to be bacteria that live on the plants. It raised the interesting prospect that if the same capacity can be built into other plants then the need for the artificial nitrogen fertilizers and its associated problems can be done away with. The research team in Cambridge has found that nitrogen fixing bacteria can be made to reside in other food plants. It is a finding that can have a profound impact and truly greener food production.
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/03/crops-nitrogen-fixing-from-air/
Nice article!
Does this mean that ” Dead Zones” areas will become more fertile because they have more nitrogen, and similarly the nitrogen fertilizer pollutant countries will also become more fertile.
If this becomes a reality, and more countries use this technology, will it not adversely change the Echo system itself?
Fayyaz
The eco system is undergoing a profound change. According to a UN study nearly 30% of the current arable land will be lost to urbanization around the globe. Deforestation and pollution are additional factors. Fresh water is also a diminishing resource. The hope for this technology is that it markedly improves yield of crops without the expense and pollution of fertilizers. How such ideas are reduced into global reality is the challenge.
Nasik
Kudos to the person who submitted this. Finally something other than the politics/religion topic. Quite interesting too. Gives you hope that we humans may still be able to change course and stop destroying the planet.
1- Apparently plants will have to spent four times the energy in photosynthesis to convert air nitrogen by bacteria nitrogen fixers as compared to fertilizers and thus it will reduce overall yield of corps.
2- There is already an invention that uses solar energy to augment photosynthesis by utilizing air nitrogen to improve yield of crops and reduce the need for fertilizers.
3- Normal air has 20% O2, 78 % Nitrogen and rest other gases. With widespread use of Nitrogen fixers or Solar energy, the nitrogen ratio can drop and oxygen ratio will increase in heavily used areas and thus creating ” fire hazard zones ” ?
One reader comments on the original article;
“The nitrogen fixers bacteria would need energy to fix nitrogen from air, there is no free lunch, and that energy comes only in the form of food supplied by the plants to the symbionts, and so we compete with them in the form of reduced yield, and that kind of food, we could not synthesize yet. We have already invented an efficient process of converting N2 to fertilizer urea using thermal energy, and such process is far more efficient and would prevent us from competing with symbionts for the same photosynthates that we can utilize as food.”
Fayyaz