10. PLANT EXPOSURE TO NO RELEASED FROM MICROBIAL ENERGETIC METABOLISMThe full breadth of known biological mechanisms for synthesizing NO are found in the bacterial domain (Fig. 4). From an agricultural perspective the conversion of N in fertilizers to NO and other gaseous N compounds is generally viewed as a wasteful loss of nutrients. However, our growing understanding of NO as a signal implies that NO formed by microbial processes may influence plant physiology, perhaps, as discussed above, to the benefit of the plant in some cases.The major source of NO in most agricultural soils is nitrification [100-104] (Fig. 5) . Autotrophic nitrifiers that rely on ammonia as a source of high energy electrons are the predominant sources of nitrification activity [105]. Under conditions common in soil microenvironments where O2 is not plentiful, nitrifiers will reduce endogenously formed nitrite to NO instead of utilizing O2 as an electron sink [106,107]. The soil depicted in Figure 5 had not previously received nitrogenous fertilizer and thus there is a substantial delay in the onset of peak NO production activity. In an annually fertilized orchard soil the peak NO release rate is reached at approximately one week following amendment with RSM (Cohen & Mazzola, unpublished results).
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