Barley orders soil bacteria to manufacture ammonia fertiliser
ENSA scientists have accomplished a key step in the long-term ambition to engineer nitrogen-fixation into non-legume cereal crops by demonstrating that barley can instruct soil bacteria to convert nitrogen from the air into ammonia fertiliser. This development empowers non-legume crops to communicate directly with nitrogen-fixing bacteria and takes us a step closer to reducing our reliance on synthetic fertilisers. The world’s human population consumes more than half their calories from three crops – rice, wheat and maize. However, these crops rely heavily on the application of synthetic fertilisers like nitrogen. The industrial production of nitrogen in the form of ammonia requires a high consumption of fossil fuels and the over-application read more…