Three options are on the table: tweak cereals so that they form symbiotic partnerships with rhizobia as legumes do; colonise cereal roots with other types of nitrogen - fixing bacteria; or transfer the bacterial genes that make fertiliser directly into the crop plants. (newscientist.com)
The good news is that beans, peas and other legumes can already pluck nitrogen from air with the help of soil bacteria called rhizobia. (newscientist.com)
But in the wake of recent and unexpected discoveries suggesting that cereals already have the biological machinery to accommodate rhizobia, researchers are keen to give it another shot (see «Evolutionary push could help crops self - fertilise»). (newscientist.com)