Boosting Nitrogen Fixation

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

With fertilizer prices continuing to cut into farmers’ profits, scientists at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center are exploring ways to optimize for microbial nitrogen fixation. Principal investigator and associate member Dr. Christopher Topp says their goal is to keep more cash in the pockets of farmers.

Topp... "But we're also very interested in, you know, leguminous cover crops for obvious reasons. We've actually done quite a lot of work on nodule biology and have some really great tools for that. I think it's fair to say that, you know, microbial nitrogen fixation is one obvious way that we can reduce our dependency on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. And, you know, if we can learn to harness that we don't have to make it, we don't have to move it, we don't have to apply it. You don't have to pay for it. I know there's a lot of talk out there about and a lot of companies that are really pushing this, you know, nitrogen fixation on first principles. It works. I mean, that's how natural systems work. The question is, can we learn enough about it at a fundamental level to really harness it? In a productive way and consistent way, you know, for a real agricultural scale. Right. And so we have to make that case and that's what we're in the process of doing."

Learn more about the other efforts of the center at danforthcenter.org.