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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Was it from “Veritasium”? If so he explains In the video I think how nitrogen in our atmosphere is diatomic. nitrogen and plants can’t absorb this type of nitrogen easily it first needs to be split into single atoms of nitrogen. this process takes energy and with nitrogen it’s an extreme amount of energy. Plants depend on microbes and mycelium in the soil to break this nitrogen down into a usable mono form look up nitrogen fixation on “Journey to the microcosmos” to learn more
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