Fertilized By Air: Utah State Makes Wondrous Plant Breakthrough

Plants need nitrogen to grow. This means adding fertilizer with nitrogen to the soil between plantings. But there is a huge supply of nitrogen in the air that is unfortunately unavailable to plants. That is until scientists in Utah came up with a possible solution to the problem. 

Many Nations Suffer from Lack of Available Fertilizer 

Farmers in North Korea struggle to grow enough food to feed their people. This has a lot to do with the leadership of the hermit kingdom, but it also points out their basic problem, not enough fertilizer for their crops. 

These fertilizers provide nitrogen to the soil that helps plants grow. Although North Korea is an extreme case, many nations around the globe struggle to grow crops because of the constant need for fertilizer. 

A New Solution Coming Out of the Beehive State 

This is what to scientists at Utah State University have been working on. About 80% of the earth’s atmosphere is made up of nitrogen. This is unusable to plants unless microbes break it down into an organic form. 

a biochemists at Utah State University named Lance Seefeldt is working with Zhi-Yong Yang who is a Senior Scientist student at the university, to add genes to plants that can convert the nitrogen in the air into something the plant can use. 

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This would bypass the need to add fertilizer to the ground. This could have a huge impact on food production around the world. And this amazing research that could relieve starvation and hunger is happening right now in Utah.