Bacteria-coated seeds enable crops to fix nitrogen

Technology developed at the University of Nottingham could enable all the world’s crops to take nitrogen from the air, rather than from expensive fertilisers.

Nitrogen fixation (converting nitrogen to ammonia) is fundamental to plant growth and survival, but only a very small number of plants (legumes) have the ability to do this, with the help of nitrogen-fixing bacteria. But now, Nottingham researchers have found a way of putting these bacteria into the cells of plants that could hitherto only obtain nitrogen from the soil.

Professor Edward Cocking, Director of The University’s Centre for Crop Nitrogen Fixation, developed the technique. He said: “Helping plants to naturally obtain the nitrogen they need is a key aspect of World Food Security. The world needs to unhook itself from its ever increasing reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilisers produced from fossil fuels with its high economic costs, its pollution of the environment and its high energy costs.”

Cocking’s breakthrough come when he found a specific strain of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in sugar-cane which he discovered could intracellularly colonise all major crop plants.

The technology which has the potential to provide every cell in the plant with the ability to fix nitrogen has enormous implications for agriculture. The technique will be commercially known as ‘N-fix’.

N-fix isn’t genetic modification or bio-engineering, researchers simply coat the seeds of plants in nitrogen-fixing bacteria to provide every cell in the eventual plant with the ability to fix nitrogen.

University of Nottingham researchers have been extensively studying this technology and establishing proof of principle studies for over a decade. They anticipate that N-Fix will become commercially available within the next few years.