Abstract
A RECENT discovery by two of us (P. E. M. and J. M.), working on an idea which the latter had developed during a previous period of work on African soils1, has revealed that the two species of Hyparrhenia, grasses abundant in the Rhodesian high-veld savanna, secrete a toxin which suppresses the growth of nitrifying bacteria. This toxin may be the cause of the extreme poverty of the high-veld soils in available nitrogen2.
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References
Meiklejohn, J., Emp. J. Exp. Agric., 30, 115 (1962).
Munro, P. E., M.Sc. thesis, Lond. Univ. (1964).
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BOUGHEY, A., MUNRO, P., MEIKLEJOHN, J. et al. Antibiotic Reactions between African Savanna Species. Nature 203, 1302–1303 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1038/2031302a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2031302a0
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