A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018)

#31

Post by ncmncm » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 6:06 AM UTC

Apparently it is not making nitrogen at all, but splitting aerial nitrogen and binding it into bigger molecules.

Making nitrogen would be an impressive achievement for anybody, never mind a plant. Probably easiest is to make a lot of hydrocarbons with deuterium substituted for the regular hydrogen, and pack that around a source of free neutrons. The neutrons would lose energy to the deuteriums, and end up slow enough to be absorbed by the carbon nuclei, which would become nitrogen after a few steps. Also the deuterium would become tritium and then helium. Plants probably could concentrate deuterium. Where plants would get free neutrons is a poser; some plants will concentrate radionuclides from soil...

But of course there's already plenty of nitrogen in the air.

Re: A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018)

#32

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 6:31 AM UTC

quixoticelixer- wrote: post #24

mcgt wrote: post #9

There's a better way to add nitrogen to soil and it's through the nitrogen cycle. The US Midwest (which grows a lot of corn) used to be highly populated with ruminants who did exactly this. We killed them all (well, most) and now grow corn which we use most to finish off cattle, which is also a ruminant. Maybe a better solution would be to feed the ruminants off the land now used by the corn? Imagine what that might…

How do ruminants add nitrogen to the soil?

[deleted]

Re: A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018)

#33

Post by evgen » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 6:44 AM UTC

legulere wrote: post #27

rmason wrote: post #10

This is an extremely hard problem. I've been following efforts to replace nitrogen for around forty years. It's part of a bigger trend of the seed industry grabbing a larger portion of the crop production dollar. It's the science of GMO's. We've replaced some insecticides by letting the plants produce their own. We've eliminated some herbicides (weed sprays) by producing resistance in the plant to first Roundup and l…

I don’t see how burning huge rainforest areas for monoculture corn plantations that now produce part of the insecticides that you use on their own and that you use tons of herbicides on to keep everything else out is in any way leading to more sustainability.

If you are going to create a strawman at least get it right. The rainforests are being burned to grow soybeans, not corn.

Re: A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018)

#34

Post by Scoundreller » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 6:47 AM UTC

rmason wrote: post #30

ABCLAW wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not supporting Monsanto's business model isn't the same thing as not 'listen[ing] to scientists'. The issues with blanket application of Glysophate combined with roundup resistant crops are real; application volumes have ballooned and we still don't have a scientific consensus on it's effects on humans. Ignoring, in the immediate, the potential health effects of the molecule, it is also a driving force in the expansi…

I was in the fertilizer business for twenty plus years. I went from Roundup's original introduction in the seventies to the beginnings of Roundup Ready seed. I kept a book in my office (as an EPA requirement) that allowed any employee or customer to view the safety of each chemical. Roundup was way safer to humans than the cocktail of other herbicides that it replaced. It felt like considerable progress at the time a…

> They could provide financial incentives however if they can convince the taxpayers it's worth the price.

Or financial disincentives. Like an outright tax or removal of existing subsidies.

Re: A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018)

#35

Post by function_seven » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 6:50 AM UTC

quixoticelixer- wrote: post #24

mcgt wrote: post #9

There's a better way to add nitrogen to soil and it's through the nitrogen cycle. The US Midwest (which grows a lot of corn) used to be highly populated with ruminants who did exactly this. We killed them all (well, most) and now grow corn which we use most to finish off cattle, which is also a ruminant. Maybe a better solution would be to feed the ruminants off the land now used by the corn? Imagine what that might…

How do ruminants add nitrogen to the soil?

They pee on it.

http://fertsmart.dairyingfortomorrow.com.au/wp-content/uploa...

(Image hotlinked from https://fertsmart.dairyingfortomorrow.com.au/dairy-soils-and...)

Re: A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018)

#36

Post by Scoundreller » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 6:51 AM UTC

quixoticelixer- wrote: post #24

mcgt wrote: post #9

There's a better way to add nitrogen to soil and it's through the nitrogen cycle. The US Midwest (which grows a lot of corn) used to be highly populated with ruminants who did exactly this. We killed them all (well, most) and now grow corn which we use most to finish off cattle, which is also a ruminant. Maybe a better solution would be to feed the ruminants off the land now used by the corn? Imagine what that might…

How do ruminants add nitrogen to the soil?

Poop and pee.

Re: A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018)

#37

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 6:53 AM UTC

quixoticelixer- wrote: post #24

mcgt wrote: post #9

There's a better way to add nitrogen to soil and it's through the nitrogen cycle. The US Midwest (which grows a lot of corn) used to be highly populated with ruminants who did exactly this. We killed them all (well, most) and now grow corn which we use most to finish off cattle, which is also a ruminant. Maybe a better solution would be to feed the ruminants off the land now used by the corn? Imagine what that might…

How do ruminants add nitrogen to the soil?

[deleted]

Re: A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018)

#38

Post by londons_explore » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 6:53 AM UTC

This would seem like a good candidate for regular old cross-breeding.

People in the past would select which seeds and plants to cross breed by hand.

You could imagine an automated system which could cross breed 1 billion (1e9) plants at once by using cameras and ML techniques looking for good traits on each plant, using just 3% of US farmland. It doesn't need perfection - a 10% error rate simply requires 10% more plants, so it's a perfect application of ML.

The same plants you're using for breeding can still be producing sellable corn, so the cost of this selective breeding program on a per-plant basis is nearly zero.

Re: A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018)

#39

Post by ovi256 » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 7:48 AM UTC

nelaboras wrote: post #18

rmason wrote: post #10

This is an extremely hard problem. I've been following efforts to replace nitrogen for around forty years. It's part of a bigger trend of the seed industry grabbing a larger portion of the crop production dollar. It's the science of GMO's. We've replaced some insecticides by letting the plants produce their own. We've eliminated some herbicides (weed sprays) by producing resistance in the plant to first Roundup and l…

It's not so straightforward. Those with financial interests in the matter manipulate opinion and pay for lopsided science. That's why many globally and especially in the US still 'doubt' climate change. The evidence today is overwhelming but 20 years ago was still more muddled as Shell & co were funding biased studies, while experts and environmentalists were screaming for action and simply ignored. And still today t…

  it's not self-contradictory to be eager for low-co2 energy and oppose nuclear due to its large-scale damage in case of an incident (and with Fukushima, 3Mile, Tchernobyl and various smaller incidents it's not like this is just theory)

It is contradictory if one believes excess CO2 emissions cause global warming which may cause up to a billion people to become climate refugees in 2100 . A Chernobyl every year pales in comparison - the Chernobyl incident displaced 250-300k people. One every week for 50 years starts to come close.

Re: A variety of corn has evolved a way to make its own nitrogen (2018)

#40

Post by candiodari » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 8:07 AM UTC

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #20

rmason wrote: post #10

This is an extremely hard problem. I've been following efforts to replace nitrogen for around forty years. It's part of a bigger trend of the seed industry grabbing a larger portion of the crop production dollar. It's the science of GMO's. We've replaced some insecticides by letting the plants produce their own. We've eliminated some herbicides (weed sprays) by producing resistance in the plant to first Roundup and l…

I think GMO's are disliked not just because of gene editing, but the decidedly non-organic way that GMO's are typically grown. My understanding is that GMOs are typically used on industrial scale monocrop farms, with pesticides. So it gets tarnished by association.

I find that when you do find one of these people there is no depth to their thinking. They don't even know what GMO is, or why it's done, or why it's not so different from every other crop that was selectively bred for sometimes thousands of years.

And even when you do find someone who does they are making arguments like "the modified genes will break loose" ... which is absurd ... and that was a very smart individual, perhaps not where it comes to biology, but it's not like this requires much debt. (GMO is about transplanting genes, so any gene used has already "broken loose" before it is ever transplanted into any GMO crop).

"It's not natural". There is nothing behind that.