The issue here is nitrogen. It’s a very important component of fertilizer, and is currently provided through man made manufactured fertilizer. It can get really expensive, especially in cash strapped continents like Africa. The tree’s name is Faidherbia albida. It’s one of several trees that can capture nitrogen from the air through its roots and incorporate it into its leaves.

The kicker is that it grows in the dry season and drops its leaves in the rainy season, when crops start growing. The leaves drop with the nitrogen in them, and fertilize the crops below. That is, if they’re planted below.
Three- to four-fold increases in corn yields were reported, as well as yields for millet and cotton.

Why wasn’t this reported before? Other potentials for this tree are that it makes mining for fertilizer less necessary, once you have a natural source that sucks it out of the air and puts it in its leaves. That clears up a lot of pollution and industrial activity that is invested in producing potash, and things of the like.

The organism they’re focusing on is Trichoderma reesei, pictured above in an electron microscope. It’s especially effective in eating organic material, witnessed first in the Solomon Islands during World War II eating soldiers’ clothing and tents.

The reason they didn’t use it until now was that they didn’t think they could breed the fungus to produce genetically superior consumers since it was asexual, but now, they’ve discovered that, voila! The mushroom does have sex, and thank God for that. Researchers actually made it have sex. (With our culture, who would doubt it?)

How did they do it? They probed their DNA (pun intended), and pinpointed the genes responsible for mating. Though they found those genes, they couldn’t force the fungus to assume a female role. So instead they took the fungus’ cousin, Hypocrea jecorina (like your cousin, except more fungal), and mated that with two mutant Trichoderma reesei strains that are especially good at breaking down organic sludge.

Eventually, they hope to produce a strong, healthy, sexually capable strain that breaks down organic waste fast enough to fuel cars.

We wish them Godspeed, and a happy forced fungal mating.