Editing Nitrogen fixation (section)

== History ==
[[File:Nitrogen Cycle.svg|thumb|320px|right|Schematic representation of the [[nitrogen cycle]]. Abiotic nitrogen fixation has been omitted.]]
Biological nitrogen fixation was discovered by [[Jean-Baptiste Boussingault]] in 1838.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Boussingault |title=Recherches chimiques sur la vegetation, entreprises dans le but d'examiner si les plantes prennent de l'azote à l'atmosphere |journal=Annales de Chimie et de Physique |date=1838 |volume=67 |pages=5–54 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858046218297&view=1up&seq=9&skin=2021 |series=2nd series |trans-title=Chemical investigations into vegetation, undertaken with the goal of examining whether plants take up nitrogen in the atmosphere |language=French}} and [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hx3dx7&view=1up&seq=357&skin=2021 '''69''': 353–367].</ref><ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Smil V |year=2001|title=Enriching the Earth|publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology}}</ref> Later, in 1880, the process by which it happens was discovered by German [[Agronomy|agronomist]] [[Hermann Hellriegel]] and {{interlanguage link|Hermann Wilfarth|de}}<ref name=Hellriegel>{{cite book| vauthors = Hellriegel H, Wilfarth H |year=1888|title=Untersuchungen über die Stickstoffnahrung der Gramineen und Leguminosen|trans-title=Studies on the nitrogen intake of Gramineae and Leguminosae|publisher=Buchdruckerei der "Post" Kayssler & Co.|location=Berlin, Germany|url= https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/69506#page/7/mode/1up|language=German}}</ref> and was fully described by Dutch microbiologist [[Martinus Beijerinck]].<ref name="Beijerinck">{{cite journal| vauthors = Beijerinck MW |year=1901|title=Über oligonitrophile Mikroben|trans-title=On oligonitrophilic microbes|journal=Centralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde, Infektionskrankheiten und Hygiene|volume=7|issue=16|pages=561–582|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tcBFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA561|language=German}}</ref>

"The protracted investigations of the relation of plants to the acquisition of nitrogen begun by [[Nicolas de Saussure|de Saussure]], [[Georges Ville|Ville]], [[John Bennet Lawes|Lawes]], [[Joseph Henry Gilbert|Gilbert]] and others, and culminated in the discovery of symbiotic fixation by Hellriegel and Wilfarth in 1887."<ref>Howard S. Reed (1942) ''A Short History of Plant Science'', page 230, Chronic Publishing</ref>

"Experiments by Bossingault in 1855 and Pugh, Gilbert & Lawes in 1887 had shown that nitrogen did not enter the plant directly. The discovery of the role of nitrogen fixing bacteria by Herman Hellriegel and Herman Wilfarth in 1886–1888 would open a new era of [[soil science]]."<ref>[[Margaret Rossiter]] (1975) ''The Emergence of Agricultural Science'', page 146, [[Yale University Press]]</ref>

In 1901, Beijerinck showed that ''[[Azotobacter chroococcum]]'' was able to fix atmospheric nitrogen. This was the first species of the ''[[azotobacter]]'' genus, so-named by him. It is also the first known [[diazotroph]], species that use [[diatomic molecule|diatomic]] nitrogen as a step in the complete [[nitrogen cycle]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Al-Baldawy |first1=Muneer Saeed M. |last2=Matloob |first2=Ahed A. A. H. |last3=Almammory |first3=Mohammed K. N. |date=2023-11-01 |title=The Importance of Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria Azotobacter chroococcum in Biological Control to Root Rot Pathogens (Review) |journal=IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science |volume=1259 |issue=1 |pages=012110 |doi=10.1088/1755-1315/1259/1/012110 |issn=1755-1307|doi-access=free |bibcode=2023E&ES.1259a2110A }}</ref>