Introducing plants that can make their own fertilizer

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Scientists have transferred a collection of genes into plant-colonizing bacteria that let them draw nitrogen from the air and turn it into ammonia, a natural fertilizer.
The work could help farmers around the world use less man-made fertilizers to grow important food crops like wheat and corn.
“There’s a growing interest in reducing the amount of fertilizer used in agriculture because it’s expensive, has negative environmental impacts, and takes a lot of energy to make,” said John Peters, Director of WSU’s Institute of Biological Chemistry and a co-author on the paper. “There’s a huge benefit to developing ways to increase the contributions of biological nitrogen fixation for crop production around the world.”
Reducing fertilizer requirements could have massive impacts on food availability, energy use and agriculture costs all over the world. Fertilizers are too expensive for many farmers around the world. Without them, many nutritionally valuable foods won’t grow in many areas due to nitrogen-poor soil.
“This project is aimed at increasing food production and helping feed the world,” Peters said. “Transforming food production to work without nitrogen-based fertilizers could be a huge development in underdeveloped countries. Adding these microbes would be like pouring kombucha on roots.”
"if we succeed, the reward could be huge for the entire planet.”

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