[HN Gopher] An engineered barley plant that 'orders' soil bacter...
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An engineered barley plant that 'orders' soil bacteria to
manufacture fertiliser
Author : montalbano
Score : 56 points
Date : 2022-05-02 20:43 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.slcu.cam.ac.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.slcu.cam.ac.uk)
| paulkrush wrote:
| You can write a 1000 year plan with GMO. Try that with mined
| fertilisers.
| infogulch wrote:
| These just-in-time manufacturing techniques are getting
| ridiculous.
| svieira wrote:
| > Scientists have accomplished a key step in the long-term
| ambition to engineer nitrogen-fixation into non-legume cereal
| crops by demonstrating that barley can instruct soil bacteria to
| convert nitrogen from the air into ammonia fertiliser.
|
| E. g. make non-legumes act like legumes. The actual paper is
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2117465119
| credit_guy wrote:
| If you are against fertilisers, chances are you are against GMO
| as well.
| bell-cot wrote:
| IIR, there's quite a bit of opposition to large-scale,
| commercial agricultural fertilizers that is based on "the poor
| farmers often end up in debt bondage" arguments.
|
| (A line of reasoning which could also be applied to GMO's where
| the underlying IP is controlled by big, greedy corporations.)
| christophilus wrote:
| My main problem with GMO is that it usually means: loads of
| pesticides and abuse of monopolistic powers, especially in
| poorer countries.
| drewmol wrote:
| Slight correction, it leads to loads of herbicide usage
| (glyphosate). The process of desiccation also leads to loads
| of glyphosate being used just prior to harvest, on non
| 'Roundup Ready' (glyphosate resistant) crops, which may be
| worse as it doesn't get rinsed off since it's used in the
| drying phase. See: https://ensia.com/features/glyphosate-
| drying/
| sjg007 wrote:
| Ummm no, less herbicide actually
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| I remember all the PR about GMO that told us that GMO makes
| plants resistant against pests so pesticides would be less
| necessary. Turns out the main use for GMO was to make the
| plants more resistant against herbicides so even more could
| be used. Very disappointing and a very cynical campaign by
| industry.
|
| I guess the same happened with the push for plastics
| recycling by industry which also turned out be pure
| deception.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| In practice it seems like capital intensive large scale mono-
| cropping does most of that without GMOs needing to make an
| appearance. Careful application of GMOs could probably cut
| the need for fertilizers and pesticides.
|
| Figuring out how to maintain some food production capacity
| without debt peonage in developing countries is a policy
| problem more than a technical problem.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| In practice? A major reason for the explosion in use of the
| herbicide glyphosate (RoundUp) is the use of genetically
| modified crops that are glyphosate resistant. Because of
| this users of these crops can dump huge volumes of
| glyphosate on their farms. This is a well known example of
| GMO's leading to an increase in use of biocides.
| drewmol wrote:
| Worth noting, the increase in desiccation practices, to
| prepare crops for a more scheduled harvest is also
| leading to a huge increase in glyphosate usage. It's used
| high concentrations on crops at the last stage of crop
| growth just prior to harvest, in expectation of dry
| conditions which are ideal for harvesting.
|
| https://ensia.com/features/glyphosate-drying/
| klyrs wrote:
| The abuse of monopoly powers is a very GMO-specific issue:
| roundup-resistant strains are patented, so where farmers
| used to retain enough seed to re-plant the next season,
| they're now hooked on a subscription model and their "non-
| GMO" neighbors are in risk of crippling lawsuits because an
| illiterate bee thought it would be cool to pollinate two
| fields on the same day.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| > risk of crippling lawsuits because an illiterate bee
| thought it would be cool to pollinate two fields on the
| same day
|
| AFAIK, this has _never_ happened. Monsanto states they
| have policy against it ever happening. The infringement
| lawsuits I 'm aware of, including the ones the anti-GMO
| crowd like to trot out, sure seem like pretty clear cases
| of wilful infringement.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Absolutely, so let me take a different position:
|
| I acknowledge that all of the Monsanto Infringement
| lawsuits have involved farmers who a) Purchased Roundup-
| Resistant seed from Monsanto b) under contract with
| Monsanto c) that included a provision not to replant the
| seed derived from those crops.
|
| It is my opinion, as a political stance, that that
| provision c is against natural law as well as the laws of
| man, and is therefore null and void. Farmers, even big
| corporate ones, should be allowed to replant the seed of
| their crops, and it's unconscionable to restrict that.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I thought there had been a lawsuit against a farmer who
| intentionally planted a crop near someone else's roundup-
| ready crop and then bred the resulting seeds for roundup
| resistance.
|
| Like you, I take the view toward that (potentially
| hypothetical?) case that the farmer's evident intent to
| infringe Monsanto's intellectual property is irrelevant
| because he hasn't done anything wrong. In that case, he
| is not even party to an agreement, though note that
| violating a patent doesn't require you to be party to an
| agreement.
| delecti wrote:
| I think we should use less fertilizer because most of it is
| made from petroleum we should be leaving in the ground. I think
| GMOs that let us use less fertilizer is awesome.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Could this even result in (temporary?) carbon capture?
| striking wrote:
| There's a synthetic fertilizer shortage right now.
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-01/farmers-a...
| Melatonic wrote:
| Most people are against the current *implementation* of GMO.
| Hopefully as the process gets easier and cheaper we will get
| more options
| eloff wrote:
| I think the biggest objections to fertilizers are
| environmental? It's not like pesticides where people worry
| about residue on their food? They may not be overlapping then.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Fertilizer overuse causing runoff is half the concern, that
| part causes algae blooms.
|
| On the other half is that fertilizers are either mined
| (unlikely) or manufactured from nitrogen in the air plus
| hydrogen. The downside is that the hydrogen is almost
| entirely made from natural gas.
|
| So, fertilizers start as mostly fossil fuel energetically,
| and end up feeding algae blooms if overused. This seems like
| a huge deal to me, I've been keeping an eye on this kind of
| project for a long time. Reducing use of fertilizer means
| less fossil fuel use, and if it's generated locally and in
| the right amounts it is bound to help on the waste side too.
| epa wrote:
| People easily forget that crypto is still in beta/early version,
| we are in javascript 1.0 mode.
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