Will Plants Ever Fertilize Themselves?
Will Plants Ever Fertilize Themselves?
Biologists aim to engineer crops that can eat nitrogen straight from the air.
Um, do we want every crop to be Bananas? 1 evolved new blight from extinction?
Fertilize as in fertilizer, not fertilize as in Pollinate.
edit: wow, no one read the article before they got offended by the head line.
Scientists: "sir, the bees are dying"
Executive: "Can we make plants fuck them selves?"
It's not about that, it's about trying to make plants that can do their own nitrogen fixing.
I was also misled by the title.
Too late now. Now I just gotta live with the replies.
fertilize, not pollinate
For the people who read "fertilize" and think pollinate: plants already do this a lot.
I'm not going to knock this research, but we're doing so much work in understanding and cultivating the soil microbiome which seems more promoting. For example, bean plants, especially will do a lot to cultivate nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and farmers are starting to add bacteria to the soil like they would add fertilizer.
Why won't nature down what we want it too ?