Tell Congress to support self-fertilizing wheat in the Farm Bill!

Researchers in the Blumwald lab at UC Davis have created CRISPR gene-edited wheat that effectively produces its own fertilizer! Crops like legumes have root nodules where they host nitrogen-fixing bacteria so they essentially “self-fertilize,” but cereal crops like wheat don’t do that, leading to extensive nitrogen fertilizer use for high yields. The new CRISPR-edited wheat releases extra apigenin bioflavonoid compounds, stimulating nearby soil bacteria to produce new biofilms in which they do more nitrogen fixation, so a field of wheat can pull more of its nitrogen from the atmosphere instead of requiring additional nitrogen fertilizers. In lab experiments growing wheat in low-nitrogen conditions, this CRISPR-edited apigenin-producing wheat had much higher yields than normal wheat. This new innovation has extraordinary potential to help farmers and boost resilient, abundant food production!

“In Africa, people don’t use fertilizers because they don’t have money, and farms are small, not larger than six to eight acres…

Imagine, you are planting crops that stimulate bacteria in the soil to create the fertilizer that the crops need, naturally. Wow! That’s a big difference!”

— Professor Eduardo Blumwald, UC Davis

The impacts from this technology, part of a new wave of innovative biological agriculture innovation, could be immense. U.S. farmers spent nearly $36 billion on fertilizers in 2023. The production and use of common nitrogen fertilizers accounts for about 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Nitrogen fertilizer runoff often creates oxygen-depleted “dead zones” downstream and in the ocean. And synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are often made with fossil gas, exposing farmers to a never-ending price roller-coaster.

Congress is still considering the next Farm Bill, a huge investment in American agriculture (the U.S. spends an average of $648 billion per year on Farm Bill programs) that’s up for renewal for the first time since 2018. Self-fertilizing wheat is a brand-new innovation that isn’t really on the political radar screen yet. That means there’s a really great opportunity here for Congress to use the Farm Bill to help promote its deployment across America with supportive tax and regulatory incentives!

Tell Congress to support self-fertilizing wheat in the Farm Bill!