However, the research has uncovered a route that could lead to the development of crops that could reduce this problem by helping them scavenge nutrients from the soil more effectively – by gaining a little help from soil microbes.
This opens the door to the creation of wheat varieties that can exploit soil microbes to provide nutrients and so reduce the need to use large amounts of artificial inorganic fertilisers.
Excess use of fertilisers has become a major ecological problem in recent years and has been linked to soil degradation, while run-offs from fields are causing major pollution in rivers where algae blooms spread across the water, and kill fish and other aquatic life.
“We can now think of developing a new type of environmentally friendly farming with crops that require less artificial fertiliser,” said Dr Myriam Charpentier, whose group carried out the research.
The discovery is causing excitement because it opens the door to the use of endosymbiotic agents as natural alternatives to inorganic fertilisers for major crops.
