Question

What is the biological significance of Azolla pinnata in agriculture?

Answer 1

Hint: Azolla is also called as mosquito fern, and it is the genus of the seven species of the aquatic fern, they reduced in form and size and looks like duckweed, and it grows in quiet and slow-moving water bodies because swift current and water break the plant.

Complete answer:
Azolla pinnata is the triangular frond which is 2.5cm, which floats on water.
The fronds are made up of many round or angular overlapping leaves, which are 1 or 2 mm in length.
These ferns are green, blue-green and dark red in color, which are coated with tiny hairs, and give them a velvety appearance.
The water is coated on the surface of the fronds, and they reproduce by vegetative propagation.
Biological significance.
Azolla pinnata has a symbiotic association with nitrogen-fixing bacteria which is named Anabaena azollae.
It grows in the rice field and brings about the soil enrichment by fixing the environmental nitrogen into nitrates, absorbed by the plants.
So this decreases the requirement of added synthetic nitrogen-containing fertilizer to the soil.
As a result, the soil is enriched with the nutrients without damaging its fauna.
Farmers sometimes keep this Azolla pinnata in the paddy fields because they fix the environment nitrogen to nitrates in the soil, which can be utilized by the plants.
Sometimes they are grown in wet soil and plowed in the crop.
And these ferns have the capability to eliminate heavy metals such as lead, etc.

Note:
Azolla pinnata is mainly used to remediate the environmental pollutants, it is used for the remediation of dye wastewater, containing the methyl violet, and the second one is phytoremediation, where the powder of Azolla is powdered on the surface of the water, which is polluted.