N fertilizer comes in different forms, including urea and anhydrous ammonia. Urea which cost $220/ton in the fall of 2003 is now $400/ton, about an 85 percent increase in price. Anhydrous in the fall of 2003 was $340/ton, now it’s about $550/ton, a price increase of about 60 percent.

Ammonia prices paid by farmers increased 130 percent from 2000 to 2006, according to USDA. Prices aren’t expected to get any better, with supply/demand for fertilizer and natural gas (a key fertilizer ingredient) expected to remain high.

So it goes without saying that one of the most anxiously awaited biotech crop traits is nitrogen-efficient crops. R&D on corn with better nitrogen utilization is already underway.

Monsanto is developing corn that will yield better under normal nitrogen conditions, or to stabilize yield in low nitrogen environments. Last year, the company’s nitrogen trials demonstrated a 5-15 percent yield increase across limited nitrogen environments.

Across three locations in Illinois and Iowa in 2006, Monsanto’s lead N utilization gene showed no yield drop off as the N application levels decreased from 180 pounds per acre to 40 pounds per acre. Just recently, Monsanto and a company called Evogene announced a collaboration to improve nitrogen use efficiency in corn, soybeans, canola and cotton.

DuPont/Pioneer Hi-Bred also is developing corn with enhanced nitrogen use efficiency, allowing farmers to reduce input costs per bushel of corn produced, while reducing the environmental impact of nitrogen fertilizer production use.

There is public research as well to discover genes associated with nitrogen use efficiency. Background on one project at the University of Illinois looking at “NitroGenes” can be found online at http://nitro genes.cropsci.uiuc.edu

What about self-fertilizing corn, wheat, barley and rice? Are N-fixing cereal crops a pipedream? Maybe not. Nature last year reported efforts of researchers in the UK and Denmark to genetically engineer plants to produce root nodules in the absence of rhizobia. The intent is crops that would not need to be treated with nitrogen fertilizer, instead relying on natural bacteria in the soil to colonize N-fixing nodules.

One of the biggest issues with no-till is how do you put down N, when, what form, and will it be there when the crop needs it. Can you imagine growing wheat or corn that fix N like soybeans? Less trips over the field, not having to worry about leaching and whether it stays put in the root zone, savings in time and money. One can see advantages for the environment, transportation and storage logistics, even in fighting crime, with fewer anhydrous tanks for meth makers.

Research on N-fixing crops is in its infancy, while commercialization of nitrogen-use efficient corn is nearing reality.

All in all, this R&D represents what might eventually be one of the most significant breakthroughs in the history of agriculture. Topp is a member of Growers for Biotechnology, an all-farmer non-profit group in the Northern Plains who volunteer time to promote and facilitate the research, development and acceptance of biotechnology in agriculture, focusing primarily on crops.