SEOUL, Oct. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — A research team from Kyung Hee University said Monday that it had developed a new eco-friendly microorganism fertilizer technology that can turn methanol generated in livestock and agricultural areas to a hormone that promotes plant growth.
Methylotrophic bacillus is a microorganism that decomposes methane using methanol to take it as an energy source.
At constant temperature and pressure conditions, methane can be converted into high value added materials such as alcohol, organic acids, olefins and bio polymers.
The research team redesigned the metabolic pathway of the methylotrophic bacillus and turned the methane in the air into a hormone that supports the growth and rooting of plants.
The methylotrophic bacillus creates a metabolic pathway in which methane is digested as an amino acid L-tryptophan to enhance the productivity of L-tryptophan as well as to turn it into a plant growth-supporting hormone, indole acetic acid.
As a result of processing wheat seed with the microorganism fertilizer, growth of sprouts and roots were 2 and 3.6 times higher than in a non-processed control group.
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