Reactive nitrogen (N_r) is a limiting factor for plant growth in agriculture. Traditionally, manure and cover plants are used as an N_r source to support crop growth. Introduction of the Haber‐Bosch process at the beginning of the last century greatly affected agriculture, offering relatively cheap access to N_r from N₂, and its usage in mass‐produced N fertilizers considerably increased crop production. Yet, crop plants take up less than 50% of this applied N_r (Cameron et al., 2013), and runoff nitrate, as the end product of nitrification in the soil, has become a key problem in many agricultural areas leading to contamination of groundwater. In the past decades, nitrate levels in groundwater often even exceeded the upper safe limit, which is currently set to 50 mg/L for short‐term and 3 mg/L for long‐term exposure (Ward et al., 2018). In addition, fertilizer surplus leads to increased greenhouse gas emission in form of ammonia and nitrogen oxides, contributing to climate change (Cameron et al., 2013; Erisman et al., 2013). Together, N fertilizer use has direct consequences on environmental and human health and the downsides are expected to soon outweigh the benefits of food production (Erisman et al., 2013). Hence, finding a more sustainable way to grow healthy plants that is compatible with high yield and good quality food production, urgently needs more attention. A possible approach is generating plants that are adapted to soils with minimal fertilization.

活性氮（N _r）是农业植物生长的限制因素。传统上，粪便和盖植物用作一个N _{- [R}源，以支持作物生长。上个世纪初引入哈伯-博世（Haber-Bosch）工艺对农业产生了很大影响，从N ₂获得N _r的成本相对较低，并且将其用于大量生产的N肥料中大大提高了农作物的产量。然而，作物植物占用这个施加的N中的小于50％_[R（Cameron等。，2013），径流硝酸盐作为土壤中硝化的最终产物，已成为许多农业地区导致地下水污染的关键问题。在过去的几十年中，地下水中的硝酸盐水平通常甚至超过了安全上限，目前将其短期和长期暴露水平分别设定为50 mg / L和3 mg / L（Ward等人，2018）。此外，化肥过剩导致以氨和氮氧化物的形式增加温室气体排放，导致气候变化（Cameron等，2013； Erisman等，2013）。总之，氮肥的使用会对环境和人类健康产生直接影响，预计其不利影响很快会超过粮食生产的收益（Erisman等人，2013年）。）。因此，迫切需要关注一种与高产优质食品生产相适应的健康植物的可持续发展方式。一种可能的方法是以最少的施肥量使植物适应土壤。