Efficient use of Nitrogen

A team of scientists has found physical attributes and genes that help identify which types of rice use nitrogen efficiently.
They also reported 34 genes associated with N-use-efficient (NUE) for potential crop improvement.

Nitrogen is so vital because it is a major component of chlorophyll, the compound by which plants use sunlight energy to produce sugars from water and carbon dioxide (i.e., photosynthesis).
It is also a major component of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Without proteins, plants wither and die.
Some proteins act as structural units in plant cells while others act as enzymes, making possible many of the biochemical reactions on which life is based.

The knowledge could help farmers use nitrogenous fertilizers efficiently, save costs, as well as limit nitrogen-linked pollution, which contributes to climate change.
The Indian government’s subsidy on N-fertilizer (mainly urea) is over ₹ 50,000 crore per annum.
The farmer pays only a quarter of the market price of urea and harvests a similar proportion of it into grain, at a N-use-efficient (NUE) of 25-30%. The rest of it is lost as N-pollution.

According to the Indian Nitrogen Assessment (2017), agriculture accounts for over 70% of all nitrous oxide emission in the Indian environment, out of which 77% is contributed by fertilizers, mostly urea.
Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas (GHG) that is 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
It has replaced methane as the second largest GHG emission from Indian agriculture over the last 15 years.
Cereals account for over 69% of the total consumption of N fertilizers in India, with rice topping the list at 37%, followed by wheat (24%).

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