Giving Compass' Take:

• The Atlantic reports on a potential "agricultural game-changer," a breed of Mexican corn that can sustain itself without artificial fertilizer or nutrient-rich soil.

• While this particular corn isn't viable as a consumer crop, studying its qualities could lead researchers to discover better ways to grow food — which is good for both us and the environment.

• Here's how we can unlock innovations for farmers via non-traditional financing.

For thousands of years, people from Sierra Mixe, a mountainous region in southern Mexico, have been cultivating an unusual variety of giant corn. They grow the crop on soils that are poor in nitrogen — an essential nutrient — and they barely use any additional fertilizer. And yet, their corn towers over conventional varieties, reaching heights of more than 16 feet.

A team of researchers led by Alan Bennett from UC Davis has shown that the secret of the corn’s success lies in its aerial roots — necklaces of finger-sized, rhubarb-red tubes that encircle the stem. These roots drip with a thick, clear, glistening mucus that’s loaded with bacteria. Thanks to these microbes, the corn can fertilize itself by pulling nitrogen directly from the surrounding air.

The Sierra Mixe corn takes eight months to mature — too long to make it commercially useful. But if its remarkable ability could be bred into conventional corn, which matures in just three months, it would be an agricultural game changer.

All plants depend on nitrogen to grow, and while there’s plenty of the element in the air around us, it’s too inert to be of use. But bacteria can convert this atmospheric nitrogen into more usable forms such as ammonia — a process known as fixation. Legumes, like beans and peas, house these nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots. But cereals, like corn and rice, largely don’t. That’s why American farmers need to apply more than 6.6 million tons of nitrogen to their corn crops every year, in the form of chemical sprays and manure.

Read the full article about the indigenous Mexican corn that uses air as fertilizer by Ed Yong at The Atlantic.