The overuse of nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture can wreak
havoc on waterways, health and the environment.
An international team of scientists aims to lessen the
reliance on these fertilizers by helping beans and similar plants boost their
nitrogen production, even in areas with traditionally poor soil quality.
Researchers from the Center of Plant Genomics and
Biotechnology at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) and the Advanced
Photon Source (APS) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National
Laboratory report as an advance article April 5 for the Metallomics journal of
The Royal Society of Chemistry on how to use X-ray analysis to map a path to
increasing the amount of nitrogen that legumes deposit into the soil.