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Researchers – from Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in collaboration with startup Pivot Bio – demonstrated how the use of gene-edited microbes could provide enough nitrogen supply for crops like corn with a probable reduction of 40 pounds of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use while achieving the same level of crop yield.
Historically, says environmental science professor at Michigan State University Dr. Bruno Basso, nitrogen management has been hard – because the soil-plant-atmosphere system is so strongly interrelated. And now nitrogen fertilizers face a number of challenges: how to retain best in soil, weather unpredictability, and even how nutrients are absorbed. This new technology seeks to surmount these problems and increase both productivity and environmental sustainability.
The real breakthrough lies in the use of “diazotrophs,” special bacteria that could naturally convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium. This process, known as biological nitrogen fixation (BNF), had been the major source of nitrogen to crops before the advent of synthetic fertilizers. Diaotrophs, however, whose native forms comprise the majority of diazotrophs, reduce their nitrogen-fixing activity if exposed to high levels of nitrogen for extended periods. Pivot Bio researchers have now engineered gene-edited diazotrophs which continue to perform BNF even at high levels of nitrogen, maximizing direct delivery of nitrogen directly to crops.
In the core of this technology, Pivot Bio offers PROVEN® 40, a second-generation product utilizing gene-edited microbes to efficiently fix atmospheric nitrogen even in soils fertilized synthetically. Tests both in labs and field settings traced atmospheric nitrogen to corn leaf chlorophyll and proved that this nitrogen was, in fact, supplied from the air by the microbes. This innovation has deep implication since the plants under PROVEN 40 had higher levels of nitrogen initially into the season and needed less synthetic fertilizer.
In 2017, Pivot Bio expanded the usage of products for more than 13 million acres in the U.S. in this respect, demonstrating the growing shift to environmentally friendly nitrogen solutions. According to Dr. Basso, this technology can reduce agricultural pollution significantly and therefore serves not only the farmers but the ecosystems and the food security of the world.
