THANKS to French researchers, farmers can do away with nitrogenous fertilisers which contribute to pollution of rivers and other reservoirs. Molecular biologists at the National Agronomic Research Institute (INRA) in Toulose, have succeeded in growing leguminous plants in soil that is poor in nitrogen. it has long been known that in the root nodules of these plants, rhizobium bacteria transform the nitrogen in the air into ammonia, which can be directly absorbed by the host plant. This ecological fertiliser promotes the growth of the plants even in soils which are poor in minerals. According to researchers, on a global scale, they produce just as much ammonia as all the fertiliser factories put together.

Scientists are now trying to induce this special ability of leguminous plants in other cultivated plants. But rhizobium bacterium is very selective in its choice of host plants. Experts at INRA recently discovered substances called nod factors which are responsible for this specific relationship between rhizobium and leguminous plants. This helped them grow leguminous plants without the aid of nitrogenous fiertilisers.