Summary
Agricultural intensification has had environmental consequences such as the leaching of nitrate and pesticides into freshwater and marine systems, and emission of environmentally hazardous nitrogen-containing gases to the atmosphere. The intensified application of chemical fertilizers is based on the assumption that plants do not absorb and use organic nitrogen directly. It has long been believed that plants cannot take up and use organic nitrogen as a nutrient. Therefore, it is assumed that the mineralization of organic nitrogen is a prerequisite for plant nitrogen acquisition. Here, we would like to show that plants can take up and use organic nitrogen directly, and that they preferentially absorb it for growth in some instances. This has major implications for sustainable agriculture in industrial and developing countries.
To examine the possibility that plants, especially crop plants, use organic nitrogen as a nutrient, we conducted a series of hydroponic experiments starting in 1974 (Mori et al. 1977). We water-cultured rice and barley plants with various nitrogen sources, including NH4, NO3, 22 amino acids and macro organic molecules.
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Nishizawa, N.K., Mori, S. (2001). Direct Uptake of Macro Organic Molecules. In: Ae, N., Arihara, J., Okada, K., Srinivasan, A. (eds) Plant Nutrient Acquisition. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-66902-9_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-66902-9_19
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