Technology at its best!

How about we just concentrate on plants we KNOW can thrive in low phosphorus conditions for today.

White lupine (Lupinus albus) is a very P-deficient tolerant plant species and thus it can be used for studying its adaptations to low phosphorus. 

When under phosphorus stress, white lupin has been shown to develop many lateral roots that contain several clusters. These clusters are subsequently covered with root hairs. These adaptations all serve to increase the surface area of the roots to allow the crops to absorb more phosphorus. These roots can also release organic acids, as I have previously discussed, to help mobilize the phosphate from its insoluble form. 

 

See I Can be Open-Minded… Well Kinda

In the first post of this blog, I promised that I would talk about more than just phosphate. So before I get into some detailed studies about how scientists plan on dealing with the phosphate decline, I thought I would cover another, some would say more “important”, scarce plant nutrient.

Nitrogen is not only the most expensive necessary nutrient to apply in agriculture, but it can be loss quite easily in the field. The run-off of agriculture nitrogen causes soil and water pollution. It can also cause global warming through emissions of nitrous oxide.

But let’s be honest, nitrogen in agriculture is currently at quite a different place than phosphate. Nitrogen is renewable, whereas phosphate is not because we are never going to have a planet without nitrogen. However, it is still in a problem-state. Agriculture will not run out of nitrogen, but it almost wishes it could...

 

Food Security- In Your Dreams

What does nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium all have in common? They are the main components of most fertilizers applied throughout the world. Historically, crops could be produced simply from the natural levels of soil phosphorus and other available organic matter. However, in order to keep up with the growing human population, fertilizers became the world's lifeline.

But what was praised as a green revolution, was actually more of a band aid that future generations would have to deal with.

Let me paint you a picture of where we are right now...

This Land is Your Land, This Blog is My Land...

Everyday it seems there is a new "it" blog to read. Someone, somewhere has posted something that MUST be seen  because it is so outrageous, it won't be on the web for long.

I hope to challenge this thinking, and get back to the basics- genuinely amazing scientific discoveries that are applicable to the challenges we face today, and the obstacles that will present themselves tomorrow.