Re:Technology enables crops to take nitrogen from the air
by Blahah on Monday August 12, 2013 @03:57PM
(#6201333)
This problem is already solved in C4 plants, which account for many crops (sugarcane, maize, sorghum, barley, etc.). C4 photosynthesis creates an anoxic environment in bundle sheath cells to stop RuBisCO wastefully fixing oxygen instead of CO2. So nitrogenase, suffering as it does from the same oxygen discrimination problem as RuBisCO, will operate efficiently in BS cells. C4 is being introduced to more crops, and that's what I'm working on. So, two birds with the same fistful of stones.
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Re:Technology enables crops to take nitrogen from the air
by dnautics on Monday August 12, 2013 @06:27PM
(#6202595)
are you sure those bacteria can get into those cells or are the just hanging out interstitially? Plant cell walls are tough. Certainly, phytoplasma do it, so it's not impossible... But it may require some sort of plant-cell symbiotic communication which many not necessarily be evolved in the plants you want to use it, especially if at the moment the bacterium is semi-opportunistic.
Re:Technology enables crops to take nitrogen from the air
by Blahah on Monday August 12, 2013 @07:24PM
(#6202916)
Yes, the bacteria infect the apical meristem during embryo development and are included in all cell types and tissues of the mature plant simply by being present at all subsequent cell divisions. It's explained a bit in the patent [1], but there is other data scattered around the literature too.