Table of Content Featured Category Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria Nitrogen-fixing bacteria have a genuine environmental upside: they introduce nitrogen into soils from the atmosphere, support crop productivity, and can reduce how much manufactured nitrogen a system needs. That case is well supported. The honest version of the story has a second half. Once nitrogen is fixed, it joins the same reactive nitrogen pool as fertilizer nitrogen, and it behaves the same way. If it exceeds what plants and...

Table of Content Featured Category Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria Nitrogen-fixing bacteria do not all work in the same place or form the same relationship with a crop. Some live freely in soil, some associate closely with root surfaces, and some live inside specialized root nodules. Those differences decide how much of the nitrogen they fix actually reaches the plant. The three main types discussed in agriculture are symbiotic, free-living, and associative. Rhizobium, Azotobacter, and Azospirillum...

Bacillus firmus is a beneficial, spore-forming bacterium studied for its ability to colonize the root zone, support plant development and help protect roots against certain soil-borne biological stresses. In microbial agriculture, selected strains have been investigated as plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, or PGPR, and as biological agents for managing plant-parasitic nematodes. The species is now formally classified as Cytobacillus firmus, following a taxonomic reclassification of the...