Nitrogen is essential for all plants and animals, but despite being surrounded by it—the element constitutes 79% of air on earth—only a few bacteria can absorb it directly from the environment. All ...

Plants have developed mechanisms to fight pathogenic bacterial infection, but in the beneficial symbiotic association, entry of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria is accepted. The legume-symbiotic rhizobia ...

Researchers have unveiled a groundbreaking discovery shedding light on the intricate play between legume plants and nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Their study details the crucial role played by ...

Lynette Abbott examines how the rhizosphere, a narrow collar of soil clinging to plant roots, is emerging as a key player in soil and plant health ...

My laboratory research has focused on the symbiotic association of nitrogen-fixing Rhizobium meliloti with its host plant alfalfa. The specific interaction of the bacteria with alfalfa root hairs ...

Eduardo Blumwald, center, is a distinguished professor in the University of California Davis department of plant sciences. He stands in a greenhouse surrounded by rice plants with lab members Hiromi ...

Scientists have found that competition between strains of beneficial bacteria in the soil degrades the service that the bacteria provide to their hosts. Plants form alliances with microbes in the soil ...

Researchers found a way to enable cereals like wheat and rice to fix their own nitrogen, like legumes. This breakthrough ...