So, I recently watched a video regarding the first synthesized fertilizer, and I thought it was pretty interesting that farmland was basically screwed if they didn’t figure out how to get more nitrogen into dirt.
But then I thought about it, I was taught that plants make the bulk of themselves out of carbon, which they absorb from the air in carbon dioxide. Why is the same not true with nitrogen? Our atmosphere is a little more than 2/3rds nitrogen after all.
I tried looking it up, but the result was basically “Because nitrogen in the atmosphere is in a gaseous form” but that wasn’t really helpful.
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Because they simply do not have the [required biological machinery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogenase). Animals and fungi also don’t have it, luckily some bacterial cultures do so they basically do the nitrogen binding for the entire rest of the ecosystem(ignoring industrially produced fertilizers).
Similarly, all the vitamins, they are classified as vitamins because your body needs them, but can’t produce them on it’s own. You have to consume them from your food.
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