science
To cut synthetic fertilizer, some farmers now coat seeds with living microbes that pull a gas straight from the air and feed it to the plant.
These helpful microbes pull nitrogen from the air and convert it into a form plants can absorb and use to grow, a natural process called nitrogen fixation. Farmers coat seeds with these bacteria so that as the seed germinates, the microbes establish themselves around the roots and continuously feed the plant nitrogen, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizer.
Helium is an inert gas used in balloons and cooling applications, playing no role in plant nutrition. Ozone is a reactive gas found in the atmosphere that can actually damage plants at ground level, the opposite of a nutrient these microbes would want to deliver to a crop.
This process has quietly powered agriculture for as long as certain plants, like legumes, have partnered with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots, and scientists are now studying the wider soil microbiome to understand how many other unseen organisms quietly support healthy crop growth.
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