Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Drewismole t1_iuhymmt wrote

Was it from "Veritasium"? If so he explains In the video I think how nitrogen in our atmosphere is diatomic. nitrogen and plants can't absorb this type of nitrogen easily it first needs to be split into single atoms of nitrogen. this process takes energy and with nitrogen it's an extreme amount of energy. Plants depend on microbes and mycelium in the soil to break this nitrogen down into a usable mono form look up nitrogen fixation on "Journey to the microcosmos" to learn more

73

Agouti t1_iuicouc wrote

Many plants are able to access atmospheric nitrogen indirectly through symbiosis with bacteria in their roots, for example the common clover. These plants are often referred to as 'nitrogen fixers".

46

ThrowRA_N7 t1_iuinpuq wrote

Theres also not much evolutionary pressure for plants to develop the ability to do this themselves since nitrogen availability usually isn’t as much of a problem for wild plants that aren’t getting constantly harvested and replanted rather than dying and decomposing naturally allowing their nutrients to return to the soil (also evolving an entirely new metabolic pathway with new enzymes and everything would take at least several million years)

11

beeff t1_iujgnc8 wrote

On the contrary, many plants have evolved to tolerate low nitrogen availability. Some industrialized countries are facing a "nitrogen crisis" where many of the native plant species are getting out-competed by plants that make better use of the glut of available nitrogen introduced by fertilizer and exhaust pollution. (e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/15/netherlands-announces-25bn-plan-to-radically-reduce-livestock-numbers)

3

DOCoSPADEo t1_iuio54t wrote

That video is soo amazing. the Fritz Haber one right?

It was a perfect combination of Chemistry and Psychology.

5

WritingTheRongs t1_iuisnxn wrote

the question was "why not", you just reitereated that plants cannot take up nitrogen.

−5

Drewismole t1_iuiy92q wrote

and i answered the question to the best of my abilities. i'm a little confused. I both answered why they cannot take up nitrogen from the air and explained how they do take up nitrogen and I explained why this is with the diatomic state being a very strong bond and hard to break. I also provided two sources where you can learn more on this subject. I am truly sorry if that's not enough for you. please ask me your question in another way as it seems you require more information but are too lazy to seek it out yourself. Instead you belittle someone on reddit with a shitty comment that is empty of meaning. please try harder to uptake information so that we don't need to have these pointless discussions. there are tens of comments with good answers some even better than mine. either that or do try again with your question and i will try harder to teach you. we can use snatoms if you want as some people learn differently https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/veritasium/snatoms-the-magnetic-molecular-modeling-kit

5