Helping to promote the natural relationship between plants and bacteria could reduce reliance on environmentally damaging fertilizers, a study has found.
As the population grows and crop yields are threatened by climate change, scientists are keen to help promote plant growth in a natural and sustainable way.
Researchers including those at the Universities of Warwick and Justus Liebig (Germany) have now shown a new way to boost plant nutrient uptake and growth. This could reduce the need for fertilizers, an input to agriculture which can be harmful for the environment. Fertilizers can run into waterways, or get broken down by microbes in the soil, releasing the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.
The team of researchers investigated the efficiency of plant-bacteria relationships (also known as symbiosis or nodulation), while also shedding light on how this natural phenomenon impacts interactions with other microbes in the soil. Their paper is published in the journal Microbiome.
Legumes (peas and beans) interact with symbiotic bacteria (known as rhizobia) that “fix” nitrogen from the air and provide it as nutrients to the plant. These microbes harness potential to help plants acquire soil nutrients to boost growth or develop stress resilience. These properties make legume crops relatively independent of the application of chemical fertilizers and offer an agriculturally sustainable approach to food production. Legumes can interact with many species of rhizobia, but the outcome of this interaction depends on the bacteria’s ability to fix nitrogen and the soil type—the “symbiotic efficiency.”
2023-07-04 00:00:07
Article from phys.org
