AsianScientist (Dec. 27, 2013) – Scientists have discovered a bacterium that could reduce the use of fertilizer in sugarcane production and improve yield.
Sugar is an important commodity around the world and sugarcane accounts for about 80 percent of production. The price of sugar has increased at a rate considerably above inflation over the last 30 years, partly due to the rising cost of fertilizers to counter the degradation of soil quality over decades of agricultural use.
The research, published in the journal Microbial Biotechnology, describes how scientists searched the roots of sugarcane and found a new bacterium, Burkholderia australis, that promotes plant growth through a process called nitrogen fixation.
Bacteria are widely used in sugarcane production, as well as with other crops, where they help to break down organic matter in the soil to make vital nutrients available to the growing plants or turn nitrogen from the air into nitrogen compounds that are essential for growth (so-called biological nitrogen fixation).
The results can be very variable, which is unsurprising given the complexity of biological processes in and around the plant root. This variability means that the success of bacterial fertilizers might depend on developing tailor-made versions for different crop cultivars and environments.
“We took a new approach and went looking for bacteria that were present in large numbers around the roots of thriving sugarcane plants. While two of the most abundant bacteria did not have noticeable effects on plant growth, Burkholderia australis was doing quite well in competition with other soil bacteria in the environment, and turned out to be particularly good for the plants,” said lead researcher Dr. Chanyarat Paungfoo-Lonhienne from University of Queensland, Australia.
The team tested the bacteria, checking that they were happy living among the roots of growing sugarcane seedlings, and sequencing the genome to confirm that they had the genetic ability to turn nitrogen into plant food.
Paungfoo-Lonhienne and colleagues are also looking for bacteria that break down waste produces from sugarcane processing, or livestock manures, to provide better natural fertilizer for next generation crop production.
The article can be found at: Paungfoo-Lonhienne C et al. (2013) A new species of Burkholderia isolated from sugarcane roots promotes plant growth.
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Source: The University of Queensland; Sweeter Alternative/Flickr/CC.
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