Researchers have found a variety of corn that produces its own nitrogen and can tolerate dry growing conditins.
They began studying the corn about 10 years ago, but have kept it to themselves while they undertook more research because they found this corn “almost outrageous”.
While much research and development remains to be cone before new varieties are ready for sale, they think this corn could ultimately transform the way the largest crop in America and the world is grown.
The potential improvements in water and air quality – not to mention financial savings – are staggering, says a report from WHAS 11 in Louisville, Kentucky.
But scientists at University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of California-Davis and Mars Inc., the candy-making company, have determined that farmers in Oaxaca in Southern Mexico have been growing corn that creates its own fertilizer for centuries, if not millennia.
The plants have bizarre fingerlike roots sticking out of their stalks.
The roots secrete a mucus contain nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
The process is part of a cycle. The bacteria live on carbon, which the plant supplies in the form of sugar.
Nitrogen fixation is best known for occurring in legumes such as soybeans.
The researchers found out about the corn from Howard-Yana Shapiro, the chief agricultural officer at Mars and adjunct professor at UC-Davis.
Decades ago, he had the idea to look for unusual traits in crops that traditional farmers have adapted to their particular climate and soil.
He hoped to find something that could improve crops globally. Hold on. Things that appear tp be too good to be true often are.
