Eco-friendly fertiliser technology uses greenhouse gases to promote crop growth

Korea Bizwire

Korea Bizwire

A research team from Kyung Hee University in South Korea has developed an eco-friendly microorganism fertiliser technology that can turn methanol generated by livestock in agricultural areas into a hormone that promotes plant growth.

Methylotrophic bacillus is a microorganism that decomposes methane using methanol to take it as an energy source.

At constant temperature and pressure conditions, methane can be converted into high value-added materials such as alcohol, organic acids, olefins and biopolymers.

Eco-friendly fertiliser technology uses greenhouse gases to promote crop growth

The research team redesigned the metabolic pathway of the methylotrophic bacillus and turned the methane in the air into a hormone that supports the growth and rooting of plants.

The methylotrophic bacillus creates a metabolic pathway in which methane is digested as an amino acid L-tryptophan to enhance the productivity of L-tryptophan as well as to turn it into a plant growth-supporting hormone, indole acetic acid.

As a result of processing wheat seed with the microorganism fertiliser, growth of sprouts and roots were two- and 3.6-times higher than in a non-processed control group.

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