Prospects for the future use of legumes
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As rhizobiologists or soil scientists, our reflex is to think of legumes in the primary role of providing fixed nitrogen to otherwise depauperate soils. However, other scientists see them as vital food or forage plants, as essential rotational species to improve cereal yields, or as a forestry commodity that provides wood for fuel or shelter. Some scientists now see them as a source of pharmaceutical drugs for a range of maladies. This last role is not unrealistic when we note that legumes have been components of traditional medicines for many centuries (Duke, 1981). No matter the end use, the symbiotic association between root-nodule bacteria (hereafter, rhizobia) and legumes plays a significant role in world agricultural productivity by reducing ca. 100 million MT (metric tonnes) of atmospheric dinitrogen into ammonia (Freiberg et al., 1997; Herridge and Rose, 2000; see Chapter 2 of this volume) and saving US$10 billion on fertilizer N each year. After photosynthesis, we might consider biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) by legumes as the most fundamentally important biological process on the planet. This is a critical issue because many countries (both developing and advanced) have not fully embraced BNF and are substantially reliant upon fertiliser nitrogen to drive agricultural productivity. Lack of adoption is attributed to many factors, which range from a paucity of knowledge and expertise both in manufacturing inoculants and in growing and inoculating legumes with rhizobia (Giller, 2001) to government subsidies in some advanced economies that mitigate against the use of biological N2 fixation. Sadly, with the price of fossil fuels inevitably increasing, small economies will be faced with either food shortages or an inflated bill for fertiliser nitrogen. Many developing countries, such as those in SE Asia, rely upon buying urea for rice production (Thein and Hein, 1997). Their declining purchasing power in real terms will be deleterious for food production. This problem must be addressed now because current reviews forecast that food production will need to double by 2020 to feed our expanding population (Byerlee and White, 2000) and this cannot happen without inputs of N.
Publication Title
Nitrogen-fixing Leguminous Symbioses
ISBN
978-1-4020-3548-7, 978-1-4020-3545-6
Publication Date
2008
Document Type
Contribution to Book
Publisher
Springer
City
Dordrecht
Keywords
nitrogen fixation, legumes, crop and pasture science
Disciplines
Agronomy and Crop Sciences
Recommended Citation
Howieson, J.G., Yates, R.J., Foster, K.J., Real, D., Besier, R.B. (2008). Prospects For The Future Use Of Legumes. In: Dilworth, M.J., James, E.K., Sprent, J.I., Newton, W.E. (eds) Nitrogen-fixing Leguminous Symbioses. Nitrogen Fixation: Origins, Applications, and Research Progress, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-3548-7_12
