Three schoolgirls in Kinsale pulled up a pea plant covered in warts (2016)
Three Irish schoolgirls discovered that rhizobium bacteria could potentially help cereal crops fix nitrogen, challenging established scientific skepticism. Their project, which began as a school experiment, aimed to address global food security issues.
Why it matters
This story highlights the potential for grassroots scientific inquiry to address major agricultural challenges like nitrogen dependency.
When three teenagers glimpsed what others dismissed as plant disease, they saw a path to solving agriculture's nitrogen problem—and the scientific establishment's skepticism only made them dig deeper.
By Science Blog Editorial Team · Edited by Brendan Brown
The discovery began as a suspected disease. Émer Hickey was gardening with her mother in Kinsale, on the Cork coast of Ireland, when they pulled up a pea plant and found its roots studded with pale, wart-like lumps. It looked sick. Émer, then in her early teens, did the thing that separates a science story from a compost story: she took the plant to school and asked her teacher what was wrong with it.
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