New MSU-led project aims to help corn use nitrogen more efficiently — and more sustainably
Researchers are looking beneath the soil with an ambitious goal to cut corn’s nitrogen fertilizer use in half.
A new Michigan State University-led initiative aims to cut corn’s nitrogen fertilizer use in half, potentially saving farmers billions of dollars and aiding the fight against climate change.
While nitrogen fertilizer has revolutionized modern agriculture by driving high yields in critical food crops, half of the nitrogen farmers apply to the soil never makes it into the plants. Instead, it leaches below the roots, runs off into waterways or escapes into the atmosphere.
The stakes are high: corn is the largest consumer of nitrogen fertilizer in the U.S., using approximately 17 to 20 billion pounds annually. Even a 5% increase in nitrogen efficiency could save corn growers $530 million per year and significantly reduce nitrous oxide emissions and water pollution.
SYNCORNET: Engineering Synchronized Nitrogen Efficiency Traits in Corn Agriculture aims to solve this crisis by aligning nitrogen availability with when corn plants can most effectively absorb it.
The root of the problem
SYNCORNET is spearheaded by Christopher N. Topp, a root biologist at MSU’s Plant Resilience Institute and the departments of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences and Plant Biology.
For Topp, increasing corn’s nitrogen efficiency means starting below ground.
Modern fertilizer practices often front-load nitrogen early in the growing season, but young seedlings have small root systems and limited capacity to absorb nutrients. The result is a mismatch between supply and demand.
"We want the plants to think ahead a little bit," Topp explained. "Native plants do this better, because nitrogen is in higher demand, so they have to hoard it."
SYNCORNET will develop corn varieties with improved root system architecture and enhanced nitrogen metabolism to capture more of that early-season fertilizer and reduce losses to the environment.
"In an ideal future, farmers would only need to purchase and apply half the current amount of nitrogen fertilizer to their field, but the crop would take all of it," Topp said.
Rebuilding lost partnerships
The project also focuses on reviving corn’s natural symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, also known as AMF. These ancient soil allies extend the reach of roots and help shuttle nutrients into plants.
This biological partnership may have weakened over decades of breeding corn in high-fertilizer environments. The team hypothesizes that enhancing interactions with AMF could be a more efficient way to grow crops than using fertilizers.
"We want to provide modern corn plants with the tools and capabilities they may have lost after we’ve been breeding them under an ocean of synthetic nitrogen," Topp said. "Ultimately giving more reliable, cheaper solutions for farmers that can increase yields and have the benefit of being sustainable."
By identifying maize lines that interact more effectively with beneficial fungi and fine-tuning when nitrogen-related genes are activated in roots, the team hopes to engineer crops that are biologically synchronized with their soil environment.
A systems-level solution
Unlike past efforts that focused on single genes or management tweaks, SYNCORNET takes a systems-based approach. It integrates plant genetics, root biology and plant-microbe interactions across the entire growing season.
Topp received funding for the project from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy through its TEOSYNTE program, which supports bold strategies to reduce harmful nitrous oxide emissions from crop production while maintaining yields.
"Our goal is to design crops that function like resilient natural systems," Topp said. "Capturing and recycling nutrients efficiently, season after season."
- Categories: