Nitrogen-Fixing Genes Moved Into New Bacterial Strains, Opening Path Beyond Fertilizer

Nitrogen-fixing genes moved into new bacterial strains, opening path beyond fertilizer

Most major crops, such as wheat and corn, require expensive nitrogen fertilizer to flourish. But what if bacteria could help those plants draw nitrogen from the atmosphere, as peas and beans do?

WSU Researchers Transfer Nitrogen-Harvesting Genes Into New Strains of Bacteria

VANCOUVER, Wash. — Most major crops, such as wheat and corn, require expensive nitrogen fertilizer to flourish. But what if bacteria could help those plants draw nitrogen from the atmosphere, as peas and beans do? New research from Washington State University takes an important step in that direction, identifying a key cluster of genes that can be moved from rhizobia bacteria that harvest nitrogen into bacteria that don’t — raising the possibili…

How Scientists Gave Ordinary Soil Bacteria the Ability to Fix Nitrogen from the Air

In a greenhouse at Washington State University Vancouver, two strains of soil bacteria are being pressed together on a nutrient plate, swapping DNA at the rate that evolution normally manages only over millions of years. One bacterium carries a package of genes roughly 500 kilobases long, a genetic island dedicated entirely to a single metabolic trick: pulling nitrogen out of thin air and delivering it, usable, into a plant root. The other strai…