Nitrogen Fixing Bacteria: Sustainable Growth of Non-legumes

Abstract

In many developing countries around the world, nitrogennitrogen availability greatly limits crop production. On the other hand, nitrogen (N) fertilization in industrialized countries has become unsustainable and lead to environmental consequences. It has therefore become necessary to find alternatives to chemical nitrogen fertilizersnitrogen fertilizers to ensure a secure, sustainable food production. Plants are unable to directly utilize the freely available N2 in the atmosphereatmosphere, necessitating the chemical application of N fertilizationN fertilization. However, certain archaea and bacteria possess the ability to convert atmospheric N2 to ammoniaammonia, which can directly be utilized by plants for various biological processes. This opens engineering possibilities to improve the N nutrition in nonlegume plants, such as (1) applying nitrogenasenitrogenase to plant cells; (2) introducing legume symbiosislegume symbiosis for nonlegumesnon-legumes; and (3) imparting the ability to associate with N2-fixing bacteria and/or other plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPBPGPB) in nonlegumes. These are challenging biotechnological approaches, but the groundwork upon which these solutions may be implemented have been laid out by recent advances in the field. This chapter attempts to review and collect important up-to-date information on biotechnological solutions to improve N nutrition in nonlegume crops. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.