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Follow on Google News | Plants communicate between themBy: Horticultural Alliance Scientists have observed that if a plant is infected by some kind of disease it will transmit information to the other plants of its network and those plants will not be so aggressively attacked because of the warning to defend themselves. Those networks, pictured at the right, called mycorrhizae, are fungus that colonize the host plants' roots and look like white threads that hang off all the roots. They are known for being used to exchange nutrients and water. However, with the new discoveries, plants and every part of its environment work together for the benefit of all. ScienceDaily (May 26, 2011) - The next agricultural revolution may be sparked by fungi, helping to greatly increase food-production for the growing needs of the planet without the need for massive amounts of fertilizers according to research presented May 23 at the 111th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans. "The United Nations conservatively estimates that by the year 2050 the global human population is expected to reach over 9 billion. Feeding such a population represents an unprecedented challenge since this goes greatly beyond current global food production capacity," says Ian Sanders of the University of Lusanne, Switzerland, speaking in a session entitled "How Microbes Can Help Feed the World." Sanders studies mycorrhizal fungi, a type of fungus that live in symbiosis with plant roots. When plants are symbiotic with these fungi, they tend to grow larger because the fungi acquire the essential nutrient phosphate for the plant. Phosphate is a key component of the fertilizers that fueled the Green Revolution in middle of the 20th century that made it possible then for agriculture to keep up with the growing global population. Phosphate reserves are being rapidly depleted. Increasing demand for the nutrient is driving up prices and some countries are now stockpiling phosphate to feed their populations in the future, according to Sanders. While mycorrhizal fungi typically only grow on the roots of plants, recent bio-technological breakthroughs now allow scientists to produce massive quantities of the fungus that can be suspended in high concentrations in a gel for easy transportation. Sanders and his colleagues are currently testing the effectiveness of this gel on crops in the country of Colombia where they have discovered that with the gel they can produce the same yield of potato crop with less than half the amount of phosphate fertilizers. Additional information is available on New Worlds Explored. By Soil Tips/Horticultural Alliance http://www.soiltips.com End
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