Pesticides Block Crops' Natural Nitrogen Production

[nosmokes]

so, you can either have the plant fix the nitrogen for free, or you can pay lots of money for a synthetic version that screws up the environment by being extracted from the planet, being processed into usable form, being transported to where you can use and then applied. well alrighty! let's all jump on that band wagon huh?
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original-ens

Pesticides Block Crops' Natural Nitrogen Production

EUGENE, Oregon, June 6, 2007 (ENS) - Farmers applying pesticides intended to boost crop yields may instead be contributing to plant growth problems, University of Oregon scientists report in a new study.

The research revealed that artificial chemicals in pesticides disrupt natural nitrogen-fixing communications between crops and soil bacteria.

The disruption results in lower yields or in delayed growth whether the pesticides are applied deliberately or reach the crops through runoff.

In a paper appearing online this week ahead of the regular publication by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the five-member team reports that pesticides bind to and block connections to specific receptors inside rhizobia bacteria living in root nodules in the soil.

Rotation legume crops such as alfalfa and soybeans require such interaction to naturally replace nitrogen levels that, in turn, benefit primary market crops like corn grown after legume rotations.

Alfalfa roots secrete chemical signals into soil to attract and recruit bacteria. These bacteria live in a plant's roots and provide a natural fertilizer source.

Legume plants secrete chemical signals that recruit the friendly bacteria, which work with the plants to convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia that, then, is used as fertilizer by the plants.

"Agrichemicals are blocking the host plant's phytochemical recruitment signal," said the study's lead author, Jennifer Fox, a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Oregon.

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complete aticle here

[kestrel91316]

1. The soil microbiologist in me says:

time to BAN any and all pesticides that do this, worldwide. Immediately.

".....pesticides bind to and block connections to specific receptors inside rhizobia bacteria living in root nodules in the soil......"

These chemicals are going to make all life on earth impossible if we don't STOP.

[mike_c]

2. this is a very interesting report....

eom