According to new research from UC Riverside, contemporary agricultural techniques have no effect on black eyed peas' capacity to attract beneficial microorganisms. Planting it in a rotation with other crops might help farmers avoid using expensive and ecologically harmful fertilisers.
Plants can't grow if they don't have adequate nitrogen. Black eyed peas belong to the legume family of plants, which are unusual in their capacity to extract significant quantities of nitrogen by luring and preserving nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
"Because of their capacity to do this, legumes have become the third largest plant family on the globe," said Joel Sachs, a UCR evolution and ecology professor.
When individuals plant crops, they frequently concentrate on above-ground characteristics such as disease resistance, yield, and protein content. Growers have just lately begun to pay more attention to below-ground characteristics such as plants' propensity to attract soil-enhancing microorganisms.
Gabriel Ortiz, a plant pathologist at UC Riverside, wanted to know if black eyed peas, a popular delicacy in many areas of the globe, retain their potential to attract beneficial bacteria after being subjected to current agricultural techniques. In many situations, plants that have been substantially influenced by humans may not gain as much from bacterial partnerships as their wild cousins.
However, Ortiz and his colleagues discovered that the peas' innate capacity to create beneficial interactions with nitrogen-fixing bacteria was preserved. "In fact, several of the strains in the study appear to have benefited more from bacteria than their wild forebears," added Sachs.
The findings of this research were just published in the journal Evolution. The research used 20 distinct varieties of black-eyed peas and suggest that their symbiotic abilities have a genetic foundation.
"We can utilise this information to develop higher functioning plants in the future," Ortiz added. Drought tolerance is another key attribute for Southern California producers, therefore he and his colleagues concentrated on black-eyed peas.
Black-eyed peas emit chemicals through their roots to attract the bacterium that fixes nitrogen, rhizobia. The roots eventually develop tumor-like nodules that protect and feed carbon to the rhizobia. The black eyed peas acquire a beneficial, fixed type of nitrogen in exchange.
"When a plant knows that it is about to die, it sends bacteria into the soil to restore it," Ortiz added. "By alternating seasons of legumes with other crops, growers may leave the soil rich in nitrogen-fixing bacteria, reducing the requirement for fertiliser."
Excess nitrogen fertiliser can wind up in the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas or washed off into lakes, rivers, and seas if applied quicker than plants can consume it. The nitrogen supports hazardous algal blooms in streams, which deplete oxygen and kill fish.
"One of the things we need to do to make agriculture more sustainable is focus on the plant's capacity to obtain services from microorganisms already in the soil, rather than pouring chemicals," Sachs added.
