THE DERIVATION OF THE NITROGEN OF CROP PLANTS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ASSOCIATED GROWTH
Authors: NICOL HUGH 
Published: January 2008

About 1840, the beginning of the era of scientific agricultural chemistry, many chemists believed that ammonia was the principal, if not the sole form in which nitrogen was taken up by all plants. This view was abandoned, and towards the end of last century it was generally believed that with the possible exception of the Leguminosae, the higher plants took up their nitrogen almost solely from nitrate. This belief was in large measure founded upon the results of excessive attention paid to the conditions of soil which was not bearing vegetation.

The discovery that leguminous plants were able by the help of specific bacteria to utilise atmospheric nitrogen was not thought to extend to any of the other higher plants. Though widespread use had been made by practical farmers of leguminous plants in association with non‐legumes, the idea of commensalism between legumes and non‐legumes did not arise amongst agricultural scientists until the present century was well advanced. The acknowledged benefits attained through the growth of legumes were over long ascribed to nitrification of decayed roots resulting from some previous (not to a simultaneous) legume occupancy. This theory may have been correct for the conditions of sinqle crops on arable soils, but was inadequate to account for the comparative failure of grassland and mixed forage crops to respond profitably to fertilising with quickly acting mineral nitrogenous manure.

The rde of nitrate in the soil is not clearly understood; nitrate is most likely an end‐product of micro‐organic decomposition of organic materials. Its presence is detectable in notable amounts, and most clearly, in the absence of plants. This does not necessarily imply, as it was once thought, that it is preferentially absorbed by plants; it is suggested that plants can absorb some of the less highly oxidised forms of nitrogen which are the precursors of nitrate. In other words, the finding of nitrates in considerable amounts in soil indicates that there has been a local surplus of nitrifiable nitrogen compounds which plant roots have been unable to reach and consequently to absorb. No single compound of nitrogen can be named as the primary component of the nitrogenous nutrition of plants.

Evidence is presented that non‐leguminous plants can profitably utilise compounds of nitrogen built up by the symbiotic life of nodule bacteria within their proper leguminous host plants. Some insight into the nature of the transferred compounds has been gained, though the conditions in vitro do not admit of facile extension to natural conditions. The mode of transfer from legume to non‐legume is still obscure, but the existence of a transfer can be taken to be well established; it represents a stage in a double symbiosis of which the importance has not been fully appreciated. It is probable that in the nitrogenous nutrition of plants some factors are involved which are not yet formulated. These accessory factors may be found to derive ultimately from the animal, aided by activity of legume nodule bacteria in the soil.

Assistance given by the Imperial Bureau of Soil Science, Harpenden, in permitting a consultation of their card index relating to cover crops, is gladly acknowledged; and thanks are also due to Mr B. Weston, Field Superintendent at Rothamsted, for giving the benefit of his experienced observation to the author.