By Morgan Koetje
A new Michigan State University-led initiative aims to cut corn’s nitrogen fertilizer use in half, potentially saving farmers billions of dollars and aiding the fight against climate change.
While nitrogen fertilizer has revolutionized modern agriculture by driving high yields in critical food crops, half of the nitrogen farmers apply to the soil never makes it into the plants. Instead, it leaches below the roots, runs off into waterways or escapes into the atmosphere.
The stakes are high: corn is the largest consumer of nitrogen fertilizer in the U.S., using approximately 17 to 20 billion pounds annually. Even a 5% increase in nitrogen efficiency could save corn growers $530 million per year and significantly reduce nitrous oxide emissions and water pollution.
SYNCORNET: Engineering Synchronized Nitrogen Efficiency Traits in Corn Agriculture aims to solve this crisis by aligning nitrogen availability with when corn plants can most effectively absorb it.
The root of the problem
SYNCORNET is spearheaded by Christopher N. Topp, a root biologist at MSU’s Plant Resilience Institute and the departments of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences and Plant Biology.
For Topp, increasing corn’s nitrogen efficiency means starting below ground.
Modern fertilizer practices often front-load nitrogen early in the growing season, but young seedlings have small root systems and limited capacity to absorb nutrients. The result is a mismatch between supply and demand.
"We want the plants to think ahead a little bit," Topp explained. "Native plants do this better, because nitrogen is in higher demand, so they have to hoard it."
SYNCORNET will develop corn varieties with improved root system architecture and enhanced nitrogen metabolism to capture more of that early-season fertilizer and reduce losses to the environment.
"In an ideal future, farmers would only need to purchase and apply half the current amount of nitrogen fertilizer to their field, but the crop would take all of it," Topp said.
Source : msu.edu