With nitrogen prices going through the roof, it is interesting but not surprising to see the concept of self-fertilising crops back on the research agenda.

This is no small task or ambition, but the continuously increasing state of knowledge is bringing researchers closer to the capacity to be able to do this.

I read recently about the efforts of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who have been working to understand the basics of how current nitrogen fixing crops work.

Flagship projects

As a follow-on to this, MIT recently announced five multi-year flagship projects which aim to address issues around climate change challenges.

The initiative aims to tackle complex problems around this topic, with the objective of delivering breakthrough solutions.

One of these initiatives is examining the possibility of engineering crops to produce their own nitrogen

One of these initiatives is examining the possibility of engineering crops to produce their own nitrogen.

This would remove the need for nitrogen fertiliser in the production of crops and consequently remove the carbon or greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of artificial nitrogen through the burning of natural gas.

It could also help to significantly reduce nitrous oxide emissions, which are a really damaging greenhouse gas in the fight against global warming.

Copying the leguminous pathways

The multidisciplinary project is entitled 'Revolutionizing agriculture with low-emissions, resilient crops'.

It brings together researchers from the departments of biology, biological engineering, chemical engineering and civil and environmental engineering at MIT.

Legumes such as beans and peas can form root nodules through which they receive nitrogen in a usable form from rhizobia bacteria in the soil in exchange for carbon.

If this interrelationship can be done for other crops, it would mean far less greenhouse gas emissions

If this interrelationship can be done for other crops, it would mean far less greenhouse gas emissions through the savings in the need for artificial nitrogen.

The objective is to develop methods to transfer the nitrogen-producing capacity of legumes to cereal crops.

The researchers are trying to genetically bioengineer crops such as maize, rice and wheat to enable them to produce their own nitrogen with the help of this symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing microbes.

An analogous system

This specific research titled 'Mimicking legume-rhizobia symbiosis for fertilizer production in cereals' is a five-year multistage project.

Much of this work has already been done by the researchers at MIT, but it remains a huge challenge to transfer the knowledge gained from leguminous crops into other crop species.

Having identified the relationships between legumes and rhizobium bacteria, it will be necessary to genetically engineer an analogous system in non-leguminous crop plants.