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One correction, plants, including trees, don't get their nitrogen from the air, but from the soil.
by mykowebhn 6y ago
One correction, plants, including trees, don't get their nitrogen from the air, but from the soil.
- Qwertious 6y agoTrue in basically all relevant cases but they recently found one type of mountain plant that pulls nitrogen from the air, which holds some promise for GM crops.
- Kim_Bruning 6y agoThere are actually a bunch of plants that can pull N2 directly from air, by entering into a more direct symbiosis with nitrogen fixing bacteria in root nodules. (not typically trees though) Depending on where you live, you might even plausibly have some in your garden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_nodule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_nodule
- Kim_Bruning 6y agoTechnically correct, the best kind of correct! Of course, the way the nitrogen gets into the soil (as ammonia) is due to nitrogen fixing bacteria that do in fact get their nitrogen from the air. So the tree gets nitrogen from the air in a roundabout way. (Earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, so as a bacterium you'd be a bit silly to ignore such a rich source) Same is true of Hydrogen and Oxygen of course, which fall as rain and enter the soil first, before being taken up by the roots.