“Rizobi ​​and Leguminosae”, the cartoon on sustainable farming

Two small plants of alfalfa address Spavento, the farm scarecrow: “We are hungry for nitrogen!”. He explains where they can find the natural element that will make them grow: in the earth, thanks to rhizobia, soil bacteria that transform nitrogen from the air into ammonium, the favorite “food” of legumes like them. To explain agricultural microbiology even to the little ones (or to adults who are unfamiliar with the subject) is the cartoon “The true story of the friendship between Rizobi ​​and Leguminosae”produced by Kubeitalia and written by Francesca Decorosi of the Genexpress laboratory, directed by Carlo Viti, of the Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Forestry Sciences and Technologies of the University of Florence.

Between good practices for developing sustainable animal husbandry systemswhich do not negatively affect the environmental balance, there is the enhancement of the production of alfalfa, a typical legume used for feeding farm animals, which in the video are represented by the sheep Molly. The sheep, eating the already grown plants of alfalfa, will give milk in abundance for the breakfasts of Pietro, the son of the farmer who owns the farm that is the background to the short animated film. The production of alfalfa, it is explained in the cardboard, is strictly dependent on a special symbiosis that the plant establishes with specific soil bacteria, the rhizobia, which penetrating inside the roots, form special structures called “nodules” where they transform the nitrogen of the atmosphere into ammonium. This process, known as nitrogen fixing, plays a fundamental role in the ecosystem and its importance is comparable to that of photosynthesis.