Getting to the root of soil nitrogen
The farming industry’s reliance on nitrogen compounds is altering the environment, but Ian Le Guillou finds a better understanding of the interplay between plants and microbes could help to reduce the impact
The production of ammonia fertiliser accounts for approximately 1% of the world’s energy use. And once applied to the field, about half of the nitrogen fertiliser used globally is lost to the environment. To make matters worse, some is lost in the form of nitrous oxide, N2O, a potent greenhouse gas that further compounds the effect on the climate. Nitrogen also leaches into waterways in the form of nitrates. This causes blooms of algae, which starve the water of oxygen and kill fish.
Fixing these problems is not simple: banning synthetic fertilisers would lead to global food shortages. However, using biological processes already available in nature could improve the efficiency of plants’ use of nitrogen.