New biofertilizer research could help revolutionize agriculture
Heike Bücking, Rutgers University, Huliq.com

A research project underway at Rutgers University’s Camden campus could help revolutionize agriculture through the use of fungi as “biofertilizers” that reduce the farming industry’s reliance on phosphate and nitrogen fertilizers that pollute water supplies.

Thanks to a newly awarded three-year grant of more than $419,000 from the National Science Foundation, Heike Bücking, an assistant professor of biology at Rutgers-Camden, is leading a research team exploring the exchange of nutrients in the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis, a close interaction between plant roots and soil fungi that is essential for the nutrient uptake of approximately 80 percent of all known plant species.