Скачать или смотреть This Aquatic Fern Replaces Nitrogen Fertilizer Completely. China Used It for 1,000 Years.

Azolla is a tiny aquatic fern that fixes nitrogen directly from the atmosphere through a symbiotic cyanobacterium fused into its biology over millions of years of co-evolution. Chinese rice farmers used it as a biofertilizer for over 1,500 years, with the earliest written record dating to 544 CE. By 1962, China cultivated Azolla on 1.5 million hectares, while Vietnam expanded its use to 500,000 hectares by 1973. This living system performs the same chemical conversion as the Haber-Bosch process, turning atmospheric nitrogen into plant-available ammonia, but requires only sunlight, water, and air instead of fossil fuels, extreme heat, and industrial infrastructure. Azolla fixes roughly one tonne of nitrogen per acre per year while simultaneously drawing down six tonnes of carbon. Forty-nine million years ago, an Arctic Azolla bloom lasting 800,000 years reduced atmospheric CO2 by eighty percent, helping shift Earth into its current climate state. Beyond fertilizer, Azolla doubles its biomass every two days, contains 25-30% protein by dry weight, serves as livestock feed, remediates heavy metals from water, and suppresses mosquito larvae. While limitations exist around cold tolerance, salinity, and invasiveness, Azolla represents a proven, carbon-negative alternative to synthetic fertilizer that has already sustained civilizations for over a millennium.


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