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Exploring the Feasibility of Transferring Nitrogen Fixation to Cereal Crops

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Principles of Plant-Microbe Interactions

Abstract

Among the land plants, legumes are unique as they establish symbiotic relationship with soil-borne, nitrogen-fixing bacteria known as rhizobia to meet their nitrogen demand. This symbiotic interaction is considered a promising component of sustainable agriculture due to its economic and ecological benefits. However, the scope of this symbiosis, which is currently limited to legumes, needs to be extended to non-legumes, in particular to economically important cereal crops, to achieve sustainable production of staple crops. This chapter explores the feasibility of transferring the symbiotic nitrogen fixing machinery to non-legume crops.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Dr. Jean-Michel Ané, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA for his guidance in the preparation of this chapter and the figure. I thank Kari Parthasarathy for the critical reading of the chapter. I thank Katherine Baldwin for technical help in the preparation of the Fig. 42.1

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Correspondence to Muthusubramanian Venkateshwaran .

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Venkateshwaran, M. (2015). Exploring the Feasibility of Transferring Nitrogen Fixation to Cereal Crops. In: Lugtenberg, B. (eds) Principles of Plant-Microbe Interactions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08575-3_42

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