Scientists search for ways for plants to thrive without nitrogen fertiliser

"Two new projects will call on the expertise of Imperial researchers, alongside other world-leading scientists in the US and the UK, to reduce the need for nitrogen-based fertilisers in agriculture.

This will make crop production cheaper and more sustainable, as well as reducing the environmental impact of arable farming.

Professors Bill Rutherford and Martin Buck together with their colleague from the Department of Life Sciences, Dr James Murray will search for a ‘lost’ nitrogen-fixing bacterium that was originally discovered in soil covering a charcoal fire in Germany. The aim is to scour the planet for the missing bug, and any related bacteria. Once found, they will test for a very special nitrogen-fixing enzyme that was originally reported to be able to work in the presence of oxygen, which is unlike all other known nitrogenase enzymes.

The second project will re-engineer the processes in bacteria that use solar energy to drive nitrogen fixation, so that it can ultimately be done inside plants and thus reduce the need for fertilisers."

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