Comments on: Breakthrough Technology Enables Crops To Take Nitrogen From The Air — Effective Means To Replace Nitrogen Fertilizers Developed

By: Fayyaz

Fayyaz — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 13:33:00 +0000

Normal air has 20% O2, 78 % Nitrogen and rest other gases. With widespread use of Nitrogen fixers or Solar energy, the nitrogen ratio can drop and oxygen ratio will increase in heavily used areas and thus creating ” fire hazard zones ” ?

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 22:51:00 +0000

One has to wonder why, after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, plants haven’t invented drip irrigation.

Perhaps the crop doesn’t want it or feel that it would be beneficial to it. hmm.

By: anti-agribiz

anti-agribiz — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 21:53:00 +0000

seems to me if this ‘symbiotic’ relationship were good for all of the (non-legume) plants, then after hundreds or thousands of years of evolution they’d have already developed the relationship. why do ‘scientists always have to eff with the food supply? whatever happened to proper practices of husbandry? If proper crop rotation (presumably with legumes and other non N-fixing crops) didn’t put the helpful bacteria into the soil and in turn be taken up by the subsequent crops, perhaps the crop doesn’t want it or feel that it would be beneficial to it. hmm.

By: Ronald Brakels

Ronald Brakels — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 01:36:00 +0000

It definitely takes energy to fix nitrogen, but there are advantages to having the plants do it themselves. After all, if non-nitrogen fixers had the clear advantage we’d probably all be eating a lot less beans. Advantages include less nitrogen being fixed in total, reducing nutrient pollution, and reducing the cost of inputs for farmers which is particularly important when there is a high risk of crop failure. Non-organic commercial farmers do engage in crop rotation with nitrogen fixers when they consider it worthwhile and it’s not uncommon (around here anyway) for low input costs to make the difference between planting a crop and not planting anything.

By: Marion Meads

Marion Meads — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 09:37:00 +0000

here’s the latest edition of his book. It is discussed well, the computational basis and the yield of various crops using applied nitrogen versus nitrogen fixing. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8976693-crop-ecology

Professor Ted Cocking here did not actually have any breakthrough, because the yield that he would be getting without applying nitrogen would be far less than applying nitrogen. We are talking about food and not energy. He needs to know some computational mathematics in photosynthesis and the energy balance from the sun and how the various alternatives would impact food production. If plants were to depend on nitrogen fixers, be it their own, or through symbionts, they would spend a great deal of photosynthates into nitrogen fixing. Supplying the nitrogen from an efficient energy conversion source would be key to producing more food.

By: Marion Meads

Marion Meads — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 09:30:00 +0000

there is bob, it is fundamental rule in plant life, we took it up in ecology, and it so happens, my teacher’s name is also bob. I’ll spoon feed the text book as soon as i find it. the guy who taught it is very practical and is much more than a skeptic than you. The guy’s name is Bob Loomis or Robert Loomis, a professor from UC Davis.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 22:51:00 +0000

I assume there is research backing up your claims?

By: Marion

Marion — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 21:46:00 +0000

What people often overlook is the fact that when plants or their symbionts fix their own nitrogen from air, it costs a lot of photosynthetic energy. For every gram of nitrogen fixed, the plants will spend 4 grams of carbohydrates. You would still attain the highest yield of soybean or grains when you supply the nitrogen. Since plants are very bad at converting solar energy to fix nitrogen, it would be better to use solar to make nitrogen fertilizer and feed it to the plants. Conversion efficiency of plants are less than half a percent with most of the solar energy spent on evaporating the water.

Only when people don’t have technologies and you are doing subsistence hand to mouth farming, then this ancient technique of using nitrogen fixers would be most applicable. Food production for energy foods would be far less to feed a growing population.

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 15:07:00 +0000

Definitely Nitrogen pollution is an overlooked problem

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 13:39:00 +0000

So the have tried it on a couple of other crops, and from the link I might make a wild guess a think it live in the soil between plantings. Since they haven’t made more advancement in “applications” in 10 years; maybe he has been focused on basic research in how it works.

By: Bill Branham

Bill Branham — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 01:27:00 +0000

A leading world expert in nitrogen and plant science, Professor Cocking has long recognized that there is a critical need to reduce nitrogen pollution caused by nitrogen-based fertilizers. Nitrate pollution is a major problem, as is also the pollution of the atmosphere by ammonia and oxides of nitrogen. In addition, nitrate pollution is a health hazard and also causes oxygen-depleted “dead zones” in our waterways and oceans. A recent study estimates that that the annual cost of damage caused by nitrogen pollution across Europe is £60 billion — £280 billion a year.
Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/03/crops-nitrogen-fixing-from-air/#8V9rQA92qiA2jeJ4.99

By: Ross

Ross — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 21:41:00 +0000

My bad. The field appears to be studying the bacteria it at the genetic level but not changing it. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186%2F1471-2164-10-450

http://organicsoiltechnology.com/gluconacetobacter-diazotrophicus-nitrogen-fixing-bacterium.html

By: Malaclypse

Malaclypse — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 21:10:00 +0000

Have you actually read the piece?

“N-Fix doesn’t involve any genetic modification or bio-engineering, it’s
simply a naturally occurring nitrogen-fixing bacteria that”

By: Ross

Ross — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 18:36:00 +0000

They appear to be genetically engineering the bacteria to be compatible with the plant but not to the extent that it survives without reapplication.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 15:32:00 +0000

can you treat the field or do you have to treat the seeds. If they will live in the dirt until the next planting it would be out of this world. But even if it does requiring treating the seed. If it works it’s a farmers wet dream. This was the holy grail in the 70’s trying to move this skill from soy beans to other crops. The impact of dropping even half the nitrogen from nitrogen-based fertilizers applied to fields, would be great. Farms get much better crop returns with less money spent on fertilizers. A lot less nitrates run off! If it goes so far as remove the need to add nitrogen to most/all crops than this is one that can be called “A total game changer”.

Go one step farther, if you can mix it with water and spray it on live plants. Think of a NGO spraying forest and meadows. Maybe do it for farmer in the Amazon so they can stay in one place instead of burning more forest.

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 11:54:00 +0000

Sorry, link missing: here.

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 11:53:00 +0000

It's taken Professor Cocking and his institute over 10 years to get this far. Let's hope he goes the rest of the way, and the technology isn't killed by over-regulation or greed.. Wikipedia article on the variety of nitrogen-fixing bacteria: it's an archaic set of genes.