London. The ancient and modern varieties of durum wheat have the same ability to enter into symbiosis with beneficial microorganisms in the soil to extract large quantities of mineral nutrients essential for their growth, phosphorus and nitrogen above all. This is the result of a study published in “Scientific Reports”, the journal from the “Nature” group, and conducted by a team of agricultural microbiologists from the University of Pisa and CNR, coordinated by Professor Manuela Giovannetti, and CREA geneticists (Council for Research and experimentation in Agriculture and analysis of the agrarian economy), coordinated by the doctors Pasquale de Vita and Luigi Cattivelli. The research, conducted on 108 different varieties of durum wheat both ancient and modern, has in fact shown for the first time that the repeated selections to which durum wheat has been going through over the years, aimed at obtaining more productive varieties and reduced size, they have not caused negative effects on its ability to enter into symbiosis with particular beneficial microorganisms through which the plants ensure nourishment from the soil. (9Colonne)
