[HN Gopher] Rare corn can self-fertilise [video]
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Rare corn can self-fertilise [video]
Author : dsalaj
Score : 44 points
Date : 2023-04-10 12:46 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| zwieback wrote:
| What are the tradeoffs, does it taste as good and is the yield
| ok?
| randomdata wrote:
| > taste as good
|
| Is that important? The corn (not to be confused with sweet
| corn) we grow now doesn't taste good, hence why we largely
| don't eat it directly, using animals or chemical processes to
| make it palatable.
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| rottencupcakes wrote:
| Title is very misleading. Perhaps it should be "Rare corn can fix
| its own nitrogen"
|
| Incredibly cool though.
| echelon wrote:
| That's arguably even cooler. It's such an essential part of
| plant biology.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I just ordered seeds for a nitrogen fixing corn from the
| Experimental Farm Network.
| oneshtein wrote:
| Sold out. :-(
| ravenstine wrote:
| Someone is selling "nitrogen fixing maize corn" on eBay.
|
| https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=nitrogen+fixing+corn
|
| No idea if legit.
| omneity wrote:
| I'm also super interested. Is it this one? [0]
|
| I have setup a monitor on this page using Monitoro [1] and it
| will send me an alert when the corn is not "sold out"
| anymore.
|
| Disclaimer, I'm the founder of Monitoro, you can sign up here
| [2]. And feel free to reach out if you need any help.
|
| [0]: https://store.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/collections/gr
| ains...
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=050Y6NSIu6I
|
| [2]: https://monitoro.co
| dsalaj wrote:
| "Grown for centuries by indigenous farmers in rural Mexico, this
| incredibly rare corn can self-fertilise. In episode three of
| 'Planet Fix', we explore how this wonder crop could help tackle
| world hunger, and even end farming's toxic reliance on chemical
| fertilisers for good!"
| Steven420 wrote:
| What does self fertilization have to do with ending farming's
| toxic reliance on chemical fertilizers?
| seiferteric wrote:
| In this case "self fertilization" refers to fixing nitrogen,
| not "fertilizing" in the sense of reproduction.
| seunosewa wrote:
| Knowing exactly how much nitrogen they can fix is
| important. It's unlikely to be enough to take care of the
| nitrogen requirements of high yield corn.
| darknoon wrote:
| In the video it said something about modulating the
| amount of nitrogen fixation based on the plant's needs.
| Could mean that it's able to scale it up if its needs are
| higher, but I imagine this is part of the breeding work
| they're doing.
| mkmk wrote:
| Context: Most plants pull nitrogen from the soil, and over time
| the soil becomes depleted and your crops grow more slowly.
| Bacteria in legumes convert atmospheric nitrogen to plant-usable
| forms, so historically you've needed to cycle nitrogen-"fixing"
| crops into your fields to 'restore' the nitrogen balance in the
| soil. Alternatively, you can use fertilizers, which supply N
| directly.
|
| This is potentially interesting because the corn acts as its own
| fertilizer, fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere.
| westonplatter0 wrote:
| Per https://news.wisc.edu/corn-that-acquires-its-own-nitrogen-
| id..., original research paper was published in 2018, see
| https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...
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(page generated 2023-04-10 23:01 UTC)