Q.What are the uses of bacterial Nitrogen fixation?

Bacterial nitrogen fixation converts atmospheric N2 into ammonia usable by plants, which improves soil fertility and crop yield naturally, cuts fertiliser costs, and sustains the ecosystem's nitrogen cycle.

Certain bacteria possess the nitrogenase enzyme complex, which can fix inert atmospheric nitrogen gas (N2) into ammonia (NH3), a form usable by plants. Uses/benefits of this process:

1. Natural soil fertility improvement — symbiotic bacteria like Rhizobium (living in root nodules of leguminous plants) and free-living bacteria like Azotobacter and Azospirillum add fixed nitrogen directly to the soil, increasing its fertility without any external input.
2. Increases crop yield — legume-based cropping systems and crop rotation (growing legumes between cereal crops) exploit this to boost soil nitrogen content and subsequent crop productivity, and Azospirillum/Azotobacter are used as biofertilisers for cereal crops.
3. Reduces dependence on chemical fertilisers — since biologically fixed nitrogen is free and renewable, it reduces farmers' reliance on costly synthetic nitrogenous fertilisers (produced by the energy-intensive industrial Haber-Bosch process).
4. Environmentally sustainable — unlike chemical fertilisers, biological nitrogen fixation does not cause the water pollution (eutrophication) or soil-acidification problems associated with excess synthetic fertiliser use. …