Top seeds win Young Scientist award

Three girls who speeded up germination of cereal crops by 50% have won the BT Young Scientist and Technologists of the Year award.

They demonstrated that adding rhizobia soil bacteria in laboratory conditions reduced the time for the seeds of wheat and barley to germinate.

Farmers know that legume crops such as clover, with rhizobia soil bacteria in their roots, extract nitrogen from the atmosphere — thus reducing the need to add expensive nitrogen fertiliser to fields.