Recently during a late night deep dive into YouTube, I stumbled across a video from the BBC. The video was highlighting a type of corn, Sierra Mixe, that we don’t have here in North America. This corn, the video proclaimed, was able to fix its own nitrogen. My poor husband had to listen to me rambling and pondering how this could possibly happen, that it couldn’t happen, only legumes are able to fix atmospheric nitrogen into a plant-available form, right? Turns out this talent is NOT exclusive to legumes as I’ve always thought.
The video did explain that this corn, a different,
taller, and longer growing variety than that we grow here, uses bacteria much
like legumes. The plant produces a gel-like substance surrounding aerial roots
that grow up on the stalk of the corn. The conditions have to be right for the gel
to develop but the corn can, indeed, fix its own nitrogen for use in growing.
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Image from: https://news.wisc.edu/corn-that-acquires-its-own-nitrogen-identified-reducing-need-for-fertilizer/#&gid=0&pid=1
So of course, I began to do some furious googling, to see if
this was just an isolated oddity and found that there have been research trials
underway since the early 2000s to begin to trial this genetic cross and bring it
into commercial production.
It turns out that the gel the roots produce creates just the
right environment (complete with no oxygen and lots of sugar) to attract
nitrogen fixing bacteria. The bacteria takes Nitrogen from the air (N2) and converts it into ammonia, nitrates or nitrites. The corn can pull the now plant-available nitrogen
into its system, some evidence shows that this system can produce 30-80% of its own Nitrogen needs. Researchers are looking at using similar modes of action
for other grain crops.
This could prove advantageous for many of our crops that
require substantial nitrogen for successful crop growth. Supplemental nitrogen,
often synthetically produced, has used 1-2% of the world’s energy and uses
greenhouse gases to do so. This same nitrogen, if over applied can run into waterways
and create algal blooms which kill off native populations. Wouldn’t it be
amazing if we could tweak the growth patterns of many of our crops, so they can
produce even some of their own nitrogen?
For more details and information check out:
https://news.wisc.edu/corn-that-acquires-its-own-nitrogen-identified-reducing-need-for-fertilizer/
https://cen.acs.org/food/agriculture/Engineered-bacteria-boost-corn-yields/99/web/2021/12
Posted by: Cassey Anderson, Adams County Horticulture Specialist
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