
Discovery of nitrogen-fixing corn variety could reduce need for added fertilizer - selimthegrim
https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/grow-food-crops-without-fertilizer
======
rmason
This is a very big deal. Scientists have been looking for five decades for
corn in the wild that fixed its own nitrogen. Commercial nitrogen fertilizer
is made from natural gas using the Haber process:

[http://guichon-valves.com/faqs/nitrogen-fertilizers-
manufact...](http://guichon-valves.com/faqs/nitrogen-fertilizers-
manufacturing-process-of-nitrogen-fertilizers/)

Now it may take a decade or more for corn breeders to create a new variety of
this corn that produces commercially viable yields but it will change not just
the fertilizer industry but farming overall when it happens.

~~~
safgasCVS
I was watching a lecture by vaclav smil talking about the the importance of
the Haber process. Without that invention 40% of the world could not exist -
there just isn't enough nitrogen in the soil to support our consumption. And
it's guys like Steve jobs that get called innovators! Absolute nonsense!

~~~
Khol
It's worth noting that Fritz Haber is also credited with the development of
chemical warfare, being one of the leaders in the deployment of chlorine gas
during the 1st world war. His life is an interesting read:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber)

He was reported on by Radiolab in an episode about the good and bad that
people do: [https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/180092-the-bad-
show/](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/180092-the-bad-show/)

~~~
az123zaz
There is a good book called the Alchemy of Air that goes into this quite a
bit.

------
estsauver
This is great! Our company sells seed and fertilizer to smallholder farmers,
and so I feel pretty comfortable saying that under application of Nitrogen on
crops in the developing world is one of the biggest causes of poor yields and
also an incredibly difficult problem to solve. (We do an incredible amount to
make distributing fertilizer in 100kg increments and it's still a logistical
nightmare.)

It's a 9 month variety instead of a 3 month variet, and so if I was making a
rough guess, I'd say that the most likely outcome is that this leads to a
~20-25% reduction in fertilizer use after it's bred into main crop lines (at
least initially.) Honestly though, now that this trait is around, it's going
to be a _lot_ easier for big seed companies to breed improvements into this.
This is huge, and incredibly exciting.

------
sampo
The corn is feeding sugars to the microbes that do the nitrogen-fixing, this
has to mean some energy cost to the corn itself. Can anyone comment if this
makes a notable dent in the yield of the corn, compared to a situation when
the corn gets the nitrogen for free from fertilizers? Or perhaps the extra
energy expenditure is so small that it doesn't matter in practice?

Of course, in situations when a farmer simply cannot afford to buy nitrogen
fertilizers, the potentially lower yield doesn't matter, because the only
alternative is no yield at all.

~~~
novia
[https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/plants-repeatedly-
go...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/plants-repeatedly-got-rid-of-
their-ability-to-obtain-their-own-nitrogen/)

So, yes, it is an energy intensive, demanding process, but we NEED to make the
corn plants do it. Every plant would rather pass the buck to another plant
species (or our species) and not have to deal with the trouble of making their
own nitrogen. But when we provide nitrogen, in the form of fertilizer, for the
plants, the environmental impact is immense. The fertilizer washes off into
the nearby stagnant bodies of water, creating huge algal blooms that can
suffocate whatever was trying to live in that water.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom)

~~~
raverbashing
I'm thinking Algal Blooms could be a potential solution to carbon
sequestration

~~~
Reason077
Phytoplankton are basically algae, and they’re a huge natural carbon sink when
they die and fall to the bottom of the ocean.

It’s just that we’re overwhelming this sequestration mechanism by digging up
and burning dead phytoplankton much faster than new ones grow to replace them.

------
sciencerobot
Pivot Bio ([http://pivotbio.com/](http://pivotbio.com/)) is testing nitrogen-
fixing microbes on corn this year.

And we are hiring: [http://pivotbio.com/careers](http://pivotbio.com/careers)

------
phyzome
Don't get too excited.

Beans also partner with nitrogen-fixers, but farmers fertilize them with
nitrogen anyway. Why? Higher yield. And then the beans stop partnering with
the nitrogen-fixers because they're already getting nitrogen for _free_
without having to feed and house the microbes.

So this is great for people who don't have access to fertilizer (as the
article notes!) but it will do nothing to solve the overapplication of
fertilizer in industrial agriculture.

(Those "roots" look hella cool, though.)

UPDATE: I may have been mistaken about the exact relationship -- it's possible
this could reduce nitrogen inputs somewhat for industrial ag, but maybe only
if the soil isn't already saturated with N. Need to go back and look at
sources... [https://igrow.org/agronomy/soybeans/application-of-
nitrogen-...](https://igrow.org/agronomy/soybeans/application-of-nitrogen-
fertilizer-in-soybeans/) has some of the info.

------
TheRealPomax
Am important note that no one has raised yet: this is NOT a discovery, this
has been a very long running project, run between scientists and native
peoples. The headline steamrolls the fact that this is absolutely not an
accident, but the payoff on over a decade of research and hard work.

Shame on you, U.C.Davis. Your own article literally explains this, why the
disingenuous headline?

~~~
schoen
I think "discovery" is commonly used both for serendipitous discoveries and
for successful research efforts (though sometimes it may have a connotation
more of the former). (There's also the metaphysical and marketing question
about things being invented vs. discovered.)

~~~
phyzome
Without having looked at the article, I interpreted it as "we found something
in the wild or already in cultivation, not already known to us", not "we made
dis".

------
beerlord
The majority of corn is used for Ethanol production:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/austinfrerick/2018/08/06/10etha...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/austinfrerick/2018/08/06/10ethanol/#264ee0b5780f)

Which has negligible environmental benefit, and is a pointless long-term
strategy given that the vehicle fleet is becoming increasingly electrified.

Its a shame that political solutions to more effectively use the Earth's
resources are more difficult than bioengineering corn.

~~~
mchannon
Not technically true that the majority of corn is used for ethanol (other uses
combine to make it a plurality, rather than majority), but still, amazingly
true that ethanol is now the leading use of corn acreage planted (which I did
not know and is why you get the upvote).

------
ohiovr
Very interesting. Also interesting to see how tall corn can grow near the
tropics! Roots in the air, all that is interesting. I noticed that corn in
Ohio seems taller this year. I call it monster corn, but I've never seen corn
quite as gigantic as mexican corn. We have a saying "knee high by july" but
for the last 10 years or more it is more like knee high by the first week of
june or better.

~~~
jcims
Another ahaian here. I like to say corn as high as an elephants eye by the
forth of July to get an eye roll out of my wife, but for the last few years
I’m not that far off the mark.

~~~
ohiovr
hey go bucks! and all that..

------
selimthegrim
[http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jour...](http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2006352)

~~~
marchenko
Thanks for the link to the paper. This is potentially very exciting news - the
benefits of Three Sisters agriculture with one of our staple crops.

------
lostlogin
It’s great that this was found and that the locals hadn’t gone for growing the
standard varieties that are used elsewhere. It’s striking when in South
America how many varieties of farmed plants are grown. Local markets are
selling tens of varieties of potatoes and corn in a rainbow of colours. A
local told me it was partly done as an insurance policy against disease. It
makes you wonder what else is out there.

------
narrator
Kind of interesting that Mars, the candy company, is funding this. Good for
them. The world needs more competition in the agricultural business with the
Monsanto/Bayer merger. It's nice that they are pursuing traditional
hybridization instead of GMO everything.

------
baxtr
These are very exciting news. The most interesting part:

 _The study found the Sierra Mixe corn obtains 28 to 82 percent of its
nitrogen from the atmosphere. To do this, the corn grows a series of aerial
roots. Unlike conventional corn, which has one or two groups of aerial roots
near its base, the nitrogen-fixing corn develops eight to ten thick aerial
roots that never touch the ground.

During certain times of the year, these roots secrete a gel-like substance, or
mucilage. The mucilage provides the low-oxygen and sugar-rich environment
required to attract bacteria that can transform nitrogen from the air into a
form the corn can use._

------
jstsch
Wow, in-species nitrogen fixation. Shame of the recent EU ruling on CRISPR
(considering it GMO). Now we can't grow this in Europe.

~~~
tempestn
Seems fairly clear that a CRISPR-modified plant would indeed be a GMO. What's
a real shame is blanket banning GMO crops. I admit a great deal of ignorance
in this realm, but from what I understand, a ban on over-use of pesticides
(which appear to be the cause of most/all harm attributed to GMOs) would make
more sense than a ban on GMOs, which can be for plenty of things besides
pesticide tolerance (like nitrogen fixation!)

~~~
bobcostas55
GMOs and pesticides are complicated. Some GMOs increase the use of pesticides,
some decrease it. Overall the effect appears to be negative.

[http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/8/e1600850](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/8/e1600850)

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645698.2016.1...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645698.2016.1192754)

------
jamiegreen
I have been hoping that we could use CRISPR or something like that to make
perennial nitrogen fixing wheat. Making cereals into a perennial and fix their
own nitrogen could be huge.

I also presume it may not happen for a very long time as most of the big seed
companies would be presumably very against it.

~~~
phkahler
Seed companies would love it assuming they can get it. Fertilizer companies
would hate it. A company that produces both might suffer some kind of
breakdown.

~~~
webmaven
Many of the seed companies now _are_ fertilizer (and pesticide/herbicide)
companies.

------
bkmartin
Just another reason for big Agriculture to create more GMOs. /s

This would really be amazing. Honest concern... How does the fertilizer
industry fight this? There are billions of dollars a year at stake here.
Nobody faces billions of lost revenue without a fight.

~~~
golem14
My guess: it's shaping up similarly to the solar/wind <\--> coal fight.

At some point, there's not enough money you can lobby with compared to the
real world needs and competing lobbies (here: food/nmonsanto etc) and the
balance shifts. Also, in non-US countries people might take a more pragmatic
approach, giving new tech a leg up.

E.g., China, India might not care so much about the US fertilizer lobby.

~~~
bkmartin
The only way to really fight something like this is to make GMO's and the
people who produce these plant varieties into some sort of boogeyman, no? We
see this happen all over the world, not just in the US. The current level of
misinformation about the safety of GMOs is already very overblown in the
world. Don't get me wrong, GMOs are being weaponized for monetary purposes in,
what I believe, are very unethical ways. But those arguments are not what you
see most when arguments against them are made.

I just don't see any other angle to attack nitrogen fixing corn other than to
make some sort of GMO boogeyman out of it. It is really amazing the amount of
misinformation that is populating the world for the purpose of protecting cash
cows.

 _sidenote_ Thanks for the downvotes :) apparently my sarcasm hit a nerve.

~~~
golem14
That's an interesting point. I think there is some truth to that in the US and
Europe.

I have a hard time believing that this will become a huge problem in China and
India particularly. The gov there isn't interested in giving these storylines
a leg up, and people have other problems, such as Melamine-contaminated baby
formula (or having food shortages)

