AgrotechCRISPR-edited wheat released a root compound that drew nitrogen-fixing bacteria in a greenhouse. Field tests come next, and Bayer expects no product before the next decade.
CropsAn Ohio conservation district technician sets out which cover crops suit which soil problem, from annual rye and oats to crimson clover, hairy vetch and winter peas that fix 70 to 90 pounds of nitrogen an acre.
AgrotechMax Planck researchers mapped the nitrogenase of a vent-dwelling archaeon that fixes nitrogen above 90C, finding a simple enzyme that mixes features of all three known families and may point to a shared mechanism.
AgrotechThe US startup's engineered soil microbes switch on nitrogen production around a crop's roots about six weeks after planting; Brazil's biosafety approval opens field trials in a country that imports most of its fertiliser.
A North Dakota start-up has raised $2.3 million to breed rhizobial inoculants that can outcompete native soil bacteria on pulse crops.
A study in PNAS led by Jianxin Ma and Blake Meyers shows a root peptide travelling up the xylem to regulate a shoot microRNA that returns to the roots to suppress a gene and boost nodulation under low nitrogen; the mechanism exists in soybean and common bean but not in model legumes, and a gene-edit
