We, as humans, don’t give enough credit to the sophistication of the natural world around us. It’s important for us to place significant weight on our friendship with nature. Complementing natural processes in our agricultural pursuits will accelerate our success as growers. In addition, there is so much to learn along the way.
Recently, a friend sent me a fascinating article about a Rutgers-led team discovering how plants harness microbes in the soil to get nutrients. We’ve known that plants have a symbiotic relationship with the microbiology in the soil. However, this particular study takes it to another level. They discovered that plants actively cultivate and then extract nutrients from symbiotic microbes. Basically, the plants are farming the microbes in their rhizosphere! We’re farming, and they’re farming too! They call it the rhizophagy cycle (rhizophagy means root eating).
Bacteria and fungi have a phase where they’re free cycling in the soil and a phase where they are plant dependent within the cells of the plant roots. Plants farm the microbes around root tips by secreting sugars, proteins and vitamins. The microbes in the soil grow and then enter root cells at the tips, where cells are dividing and lack hardened walls, for easy entry. Once they’re inside the plant, the microbes lose their cell walls, become trapped in plant cells, and are hit with reactive oxygen (superoxide). The reactive oxygen breaks down some of the microbe cells, effectively extracting nutrients from them. Surviving microbes spur the formation of root hairs on roots. Yes, microbes are the basis of root hairs! These microbes leave the hairs at the growing hair tip, where the hair cell wall is soft, and then the microbes reform their cell walls as they reenter the soil. The microbes free cycle, again acquiring nutrients in the soil, and the process is repeated over and over.
“People have speculated that plants can get nutrients from microbes, but mechanisms for transfer of nutrients from microbes to plants have been elusive—until now,” stated lead author James F. White Jr., a professor in the Department of Plant Biology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “Understanding how this process works may allow us to grow plants with minimal fertilizers and without herbicides. We can manipulate the system to increase the growth of desirable plants and decrease the growth of undesirable plants, potentially using the same microbes.”