crops

New Delhi : Crops take only about 30% of the nitrogen fertilizer added and the rest gets washed away to cause pollution, ill-health and climate change. Improving this poor ‘nitrogen use efficiency’ (NUE) was a major global challenge for decades, as there were no simple visual cues or genetic means to differentiate between high and low NUE cultivars in any crop. A team of researchers led by Prof. Nandula Raghuram from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, (GGSIU) New Delhi, has found the ‘phenotype’ or the visually identifiable features determining NUE. They also identified some associated genes that could help in…