Increasing nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is of critical importance to agriculture in the USA and worldwide. Microbes may potentially play an important future role in enhancing NUE. The Schachtman Lab is using the University of Nebraska Innovation Campus automated greenhouse to screen for nitrogen use efficient and inefficient sorghum lines. These divergent lines will then be used to test how nitrogen fixing microbes may ameliorate the detrimental effects of insufficient nitrogen.
The long-term aim of this research will be to establish stable plant - nitrogen fixing microbial relationships. This will enhance crop growth under nitrogen limiting conditions and enable farmers to reduce nitrogen inputs to improve their best practices for nitrogen management. Funding Source: Agriculture Research Division, University of Nebraska, Lincoln and the Nebraska Research Initiative.