
A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018) - jelliclesfarm
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/corn-future-hundreds-years-old-and-makes-its-own-mucus-180969972/
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rmason
This is an extremely hard problem. I've been following efforts to replace
nitrogen for around forty years. It's part of a bigger trend of the seed
industry grabbing a larger portion of the crop production dollar.

It's the science of GMO's. We've replaced some insecticides by letting the
plants produce their own. We've eliminated some herbicides (weed sprays) by
producing resistance in the plant to first Roundup and later other herbicides.
It's truly one of the scientific miracles of the past thirty years.

Yet it has had strong opposition by the very people, organic advocates, that
it benefits the most. This saddens me greatly. The very people who run around
advocating 'listen to the scientists' on some issues, then selectively don't
listen to them on others.

~~~
ABCLAW
Not supporting Monsanto's business model isn't the same thing as not
'listen[ing] to scientists'.

The issues with blanket application of Glysophate combined with roundup
resistant crops are real; application volumes have ballooned and we still
don't have a scientific consensus on it's effects on humans. Ignoring, in the
immediate, the potential health effects of the molecule, it is also a driving
force in the expansion of monoculture techniques rather than more sustainable
polycultures.

Monocultural key foodcrops are a long-tail risk to food security. The Irish
potato famine, the lightning quick elimination of the Gros Michel clones, etc.

I won't get into the myriad legal issues surrounding Roundup, terminator
seeds, etc. but they aren't theoretical either.

This isn't to say there's no benefit from Glyphosate application. It's to say
opposition towards it is not driven by scientific illiteracy. Quite the
opposite.

~~~
rmason
I was in the fertilizer business for twenty plus years. I went from Roundup's
original introduction in the seventies to the beginnings of Roundup Ready
seed. I kept a book in my office (as an EPA requirement) that allowed any
employee or customer to view the safety of each chemical.

Roundup was way safer to humans than the cocktail of other herbicides that it
replaced. It felt like considerable progress at the time although we all knew
it would lead to Roundup resistant weeds in time.

From the beginning there was a small but loud opposition to GMO seeds. Some
scientist, usually in Europe, would produce a report that Roundup causes
cancer or such. Six different Midwestern universities would try to duplicate
the research, fail and then publish exactly where the original researcher made
a mistake.

I don't claim to be a scientist but as an interested observer I think that's
how the scientific process should work. Now they've switched battlefields to
the courts and gained several early victories. I predict they will be
overturned on appeal.

I agree with you on monocultural crops. I think rotation should be encouraged
but I'm not exactly sure how to do it. What I don't want to see is the
government telling farmers what they can plant. They could provide financial
incentives however if they can convince the taxpayers it's worth the price.

~~~
Scoundreller
> They could provide financial incentives however if they can convince the
> taxpayers it's worth the price.

Or financial disincentives. Like an outright tax or removal of existing
subsidies.

~~~
kickout
That does not play a role in their decision. They are rotating to other
subsidized crops as well. If their was a profitable 'other' crop, they would
grow it. Commodities are tough

[https://thinkingagriculture.io/what-silicon-valley-doesnt-
un...](https://thinkingagriculture.io/what-silicon-valley-doesnt-understand-
about-agriculture/)

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mkaic
Very exciting. As an outsider looking into the world of academic science,
though, I am genuinely curious as to what about this paper took 13 years? The
article mentions research by the team began in 2005, and only finished in
2018. Was it just the time needed to watch multiple generations of the corn
grow? Anywho, fascinating stuff.

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fouc
I'm wondering if there are other plants with "Aerial root mucilage" also?

The wikipedia page on aerial roots [0] needs some love. There's also another
similar article about this corn [1].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_root](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_root)

[1]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/amaizeba...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/amaizeballs/567140/)

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mcgt
There's a better way to add nitrogen to soil and it's through the nitrogen
cycle. The US Midwest (which grows a lot of corn) used to be highly populated
with ruminants who did exactly this.

We killed them all (well, most) and now grow corn which we use most to finish
off cattle, which is also a ruminant.

Maybe a better solution would be to feed the ruminants off the land now used
by the corn? Imagine what that might do.

~~~
quixoticelixer-
How do ruminants add nitrogen to the soil?

~~~
function_seven
They pee on it.

[http://fertsmart.dairyingfortomorrow.com.au/wp-
content/uploa...](http://fertsmart.dairyingfortomorrow.com.au/wp-
content/uploads/2013/05/Figure-12.1.png)

(Image hotlinked from [https://fertsmart.dairyingfortomorrow.com.au/dairy-
soils-and...](https://fertsmart.dairyingfortomorrow.com.au/dairy-soils-and-
fertiliser-manual/chapter-12-nitrogen-and-nitrogen-
fertilisers/12-1-introduction/))

~~~
quixoticelixer-
Yeah but where is that nitrogen coming from? It's coming from plants.

~~~
function_seven
Yeah, hence the “Nitrogen _Cycle_ ”.

~~~
quixoticelixer-
Yes but they do not actually add nitrogen to the soil

~~~
noselasd
Sure they do, they add nitrogen back to the soil that the plants extracted
from the soil.

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londons_explore
This would seem like a good candidate for regular old cross-breeding.

People in the past would select which seeds and plants to cross breed by hand.

You could imagine an automated system which could cross breed 1 billion (1e9)
plants at once by using cameras and ML techniques looking for good traits on
each plant, using just 3% of US farmland. It doesn't need perfection - a 10%
error rate simply requires 10% more plants, so it's a perfect application of
ML.

The same plants you're using for breeding can still be producing sellable
corn, so the cost of this selective breeding program on a per-plant basis is
nearly zero.

~~~
candiodari
These days people are doing selective breeding by simply sequencing genes. It
can produce the same results as transplanting genes in a matter of months for
a lot of plants (because they don't use normal procreation).

It's not cheaper or faster.

And of course, now there's a massive debate whether this is GMO or not.

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henearkr
With all this mucus dripping, won't it need even more water? Wouldn't that be
a problem in the dry future?

~~~
danielheath
Compared to the the problem of nitrogen fixing in a future without haber-bosch
fertilizer plants, water use barely registers.

~~~
quixoticelixer-
Actually it does

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throwaway_pdp09
I've skimmed this and will dig further (it's certainly interesting stuff) but
one alternative needs considering is that it's there to attract animals which
somehow leave nitrogen by other means - perhaps droppings? Or that eave offal?
or are killed by other carnivores? Something else?

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amai
So the plant basically does something like a
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process)
? That would be huge.

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wollstonecraft
This seems like it would lose an appreciable amount of water, but perhaps not
nearly as much as transpiration. But in most places water is a cheaper input
than nitrogen.

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FriedPickles
Why can’t plants make their own nitrogenase? Why do they need to outsource the
nitrogen fixation to bacteria?

~~~
ncmncm
They never invented it for themselves. Attracting nitrogen-fixing bacteria
turned out to be easier. Nature loves easier.

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rezmason
Well, I'm sold.

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rosstex
But what about the nitrogen production industry? /s

------
k2enemy
(2018)

~~~
johnhenry
The Corn of Today?

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ncmncm
Apparently it is not making nitrogen at all, but splitting aerial nitrogen and
binding it into bigger molecules.

Making nitrogen would be an impressive achievement for anybody, never mind a
plant. Probably easiest is to make a lot of hydrocarbons with deuterium
substituted for the regular hydrogen, and pack that around a source of free
neutrons. The neutrons would lose energy to the deuteriums, and end up slow
enough to be absorbed by the carbon nuclei, which would become nitrogen after
a few steps. Also the deuterium would become tritium and then helium. Plants
probably could concentrate deuterium. Where plants would get free neutrons is
a poser; some plants will concentrate radionuclides from soil...

But of course there's already plenty of nitrogen in the air.

~~~
callesgg
Did you originally think we had found a variant of corn that was able to fuse
or fission atoms?

Haha, that would be something!

~~~
ncmncm
The title says it does. If it doesn't, the title is a lie.

~~~
callesgg
Not understanding that things is not supposed to be taken literally is a
common trait with autistic people.

~~~
ncmncm
"Fix" is both shorter than "make", and correct.

Literality has nothing to do with it. Obviously they meant "fix". It would
have been equally easy to say "fix".

Mistaking a riff on nucleosynthesis for not understanding that they were just
being sloppy means some other thing.

~~~
callesgg
It does have something to do with it. Everything has to do with everything
else. It is just about the perspective you use when evaluating.

Yes it certainly could have been expressed better/differently, and it can be
seen as sloppy. Those Are valid perspectives.

