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Biography |
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Education BSc First Class Honors Biological Chemistry, University of Bristol PhD University of Bristol; Amino acid and protein synthesis in barley DSc University of Bristol; Plant cell biology and nitrogen metabolism Career Civil Service Commission Research Fellow in Bacterial Chemistry Lecturer, then Reader, Department of Botany, University of Nottingham Research Fellowships at the ETH, Zurich and Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Göttingen, Professor of Botany and Head of Department of Botany, University of Nottingham and sometime Director of Biological Studies Head Agricultural Research Council Research Group: Somatic hybridization of cereals and other crop plants by the fusion of isolated protoplasts Vice Dean, Faculty of Pure Science Dean, Faculty of Science Professor of Botany and Head of Plant Genetic Manipulation Group, University of Nottingham (Emeritus Professor, 1997) Director, Center for Crop Nitrogen Fixation, University of Nottingham Membership and Distinctions Fellow of the Royal Society, Member Academia Europaea, Member Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow, Fellow Indian Academy Agricultural Sciences, Member Lawes Trust (Rothamsted), Fellow World Innovation Foundation, Lifetime Achievement Award, University of Toledo (USA).
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Abstract |
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-Global Food Security: The Way Ahead, Nitrogen-fixing Crops |
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-Basic to global food security is the need to extend the symbiotic nitrogen-fixing capability of legume crops to cereals and other major non-legume crops. While the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture brought enormous benefits, including those of the Green Revolution, the world needs to unhook itself from its ever increasing reliance on nitrogen fertilizers produced from fossil fuels by the Haber-Bosch process, since their pollution of the atmosphere and water systems has become a major global environmental and economic concern. The discovery in Brazil of Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus, a non-nodulating, non-rhizobial nitrogen-fixing bacterium isolated from the intercellular juice of sugarcane provided a new way ahead to resolve this challenge. Subsequently strains of G.diazotrophicus, inoculated under specific conditions, were shown to intracellularly colonize the roots and shoots of the cereals, what, barley, maize and rice, as well as crops as diverse as potato, tea, canola, grass and tomato. The development of a seed inoculum technology with G.diazotrophicus (NFix®) with an extensive field trials programme to evaluate crop yield on wheat, maize, canola and grasses, indicates that NFix® is able to significantly improve yields both in the presence and absence of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Evidence suggests that these benefits are accruing through a combination of intracellular symbiotic nitrogen fixation and enhanced photosynthesis. |
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