Nitrogen fertilizers finetune composition of individual members of the tomato microbiota
Wednesday, January 29, 2020 - 15:40
in Earth & Climate
After conducting a field trial at a tomato farm near Ravenna, Italy, a team of plant pathologists and agronomists found that nitrogen fertilizers shape the composition and predicted functions of the plant microbiota. The microbiota refers to the community of microorganisms found in the interface between the soil and the roots of a plant. Similarly to the human digestive tract, the microbiota can help or hinder the plant's nutrition as it is responsible for the uptake of minerals from the soil.