Optimizing Cereals for Nitrogen Use Efficiency

Higher yields are the direct result of the proper application of nitrogen fertilizers to food crops.   Crop yields in countries that are not self-sufficient for food production are limited in part by unmet crop needs for nitrogen, due to the costs of and limited access to fertilizers. This issue is compounded by observations that crops typically take up and utilize less than half of the nitrogen applied in the field.  The “unused” nitrogen results in nitrate contamination of ground and surface water that threatens water quality and contributes to “dead zones” in oceans.  Additionally, fertilizer manufacture and fertilizer volatilization in the field are major contributors to greenhouse gas levels globally, and the inefficiency of nitrogen use by crops only aggravates the magnitude of these environmental effects.  Although the uptake and use of nitrogen by plants is a highly regulated process physiologically, different crop species and even different varieties within a crop species show widely varying abilities to use fertilizers efficiently.  An update will be provided on current Arcadia Biosciences collaborative work with locally based partners and USAID support in India and West Africa to develop and evaluate locally adapted rice lines containing a specific genetic modification that is predicted to increase nitrogen use efficiency under local agricultural field conditions.