Scientists creating plants that make their own fertilizer

[thegreenman]

 
 

Creating Plants That Make Their Own Fertilizer
Aug. 24, 2013 — Since the dawn of agriculture, people have exercised great ingenuity to pump more nitrogen into crop fields. Farmers have planted legumes and plowed the entire crop under, strewn night soil or manure on the fields, shipped in bat dung from islands in the Pacific or saltpeter from Chilean mines and plowed in glistening granules of synthetic fertilizer made in chemical plants.
No wonder biologist Himadri Pakrasi's team is excited by the project they are undertaking. If they succeed, the chemical apparatus for nitrogen fixation will be miniaturized, automated and relocated within the plant so nitrogen is available when and where it is needed -- and only then and there.
 
"Ultimately what we want to do is take this entire nitrogen-fixation apparatus -- which evolved once and only once -- and put it in plants," Pakrasi said. "Because of the energy requirements of nitrogen fixation, we want to put it in chloroplasts, because that's where the energy-storing ATP molecules are produced." In effect, the goal is to convert all crop plants, not just the legumes, into nitrogen fixers.

 
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130824131517.htm
 
  

 

[TOAW]

The amout of energy savings on production alone would be huge, add fuel saved with shipping and spreading. Also safety issues in handling, shipping, and storage of nitrogen fertilizers would disappear. Runoff of nitrogen into waterways and groundwater would also stop being a concern. Also less green house gasses including nitrous oxide.
 
But I'm sure some people would complain about GMOs being used.

 

[Nigel]

Very interesting. A potentially useful application of molecular biology rather than a bullshit one from Monsanto

 

[cycadjungle]

The strutures would have to work efficiently though, if the plants are to grow fast and produce well. I know cycads have corraloid roots and fix their own nitrogen, but using this method, they grow REALLY slow compared to the way they grow when you give them the correct form of fertilizer. Also, what about minor elements? I don't know anything about growing peanuts, do the farmers not fertilize those plants at all, or are they still giving them some sort of fertilizer as an ammendment? Tom