Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/344/en

The beneficial preceding-crop effect of legumes remained a riddle until the end of the nineteenth century, until in 1886 Hellriegel (1831–1895) published his discovery of the nitrogen-fixing nodule bacteria living in symbiosis with the roots of leguminous plants. Despite these findings from science and practice concerning the binding of nitrogen from the air as something occurring within the living, all zeal concentrated on the question of how the nitrogen of the air might be converted by technical means, bypassing the living altogether, into the form of a salt. For the goal was not merely to secure this most coveted of all fertilizing substances for agriculture, but equally for the manufacture of explosives. The world's sole deposit of nitrogen salts in workable quantities — in the form of sodium nitrate — lies in the Atacama Desert in Chile, a remote and exceedingly costly source for the growing demand of the nineteenth century.