Research aims to boost plants' nitrogen production.
A Washington State University professor has received a grant in excess of half a million dollars to continue fundamental research that may some day reduce farmers’ reliance on industrially produced nitrogen fertilizer.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Biosciences Program awarded a three-year $510,000 grant to Michael Kahn, a fellow in WSU's Institute of Biological Chemistry and associate director of the Agricultural Research Center.
Research seeks to improve legumes' nitrogen productivity
The goal of Dr. Kahn’s research is to improve the nitrogen productivity of legumes to produce more nitrogen for subsequent crops and perhaps to transfer nitrogen fixation to other crops, such as grains that can’t currently fix nitrogen.
Achieving the goal would increase soil fertility and decrease farmers’ cost of applying increasingly expensive nitrogen fertilizer.
Dr. Michael Kahn
Nitrogen fertilizer is big expense
“Nitrogen fertilizer is the single biggest expense that many farmers incur in raising their crops,” Dr. Kahn said. “It is made directly from natural gas, so when the price of natural gas rises, so do fertilizer prices. In addition, we don’t manufacture much of the fertilizer in the United States. Last year, we imported about 70 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer we used.”
Legume crops, such as alfalfa, peas, lentils, soybeans, and chickpeas, form symbiotic relationships with bacteria in the soil and, through a complex relationship, fix nitrogen gas from the air into ammonia, which the plants can use for growth. Dr. Kahn’s research team is investigating ways to help the plants store some of the fixed nitrogen for later use.
Institute of Biological Chemistry
Graduate Program in Molecular Plant Science
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