Engineering bioenergy crops so they can be grown in marginal lands
Nitrogen compounds are essential to plant development, but atmospheric nitrogen must be fixed (transformed) into molecules that plants can use. Bacteria are the only organisms able to carry out nitrogen fixation.
Nitrogen-fixing bacteria are found in many environments. Some nitrogen-fixing bacteria found in the soil have the additional ability to live inside the root nodules of certain plants, such as legumes, and provide fixed nitrogen to the plant host.