researchers in Germany have discovered a group of hitherto unknown nitrogen-fixing bacteria deep inside the roots of Kallar grass, Leptochloa fusca in Pakistan. This grass grows wild in salty soil and can be grown without fertiliser. Thomas Hurek and Reinhard Hurek of the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany, say that the microorganisms belong to a new genus, which they have named Azoarcus .

For twenty years, researchers have been struggling to find varieties of rice that can take nitrogen from the air and