Denitrification

Denitrification
The loss of soil nitrogen is called denitrification and mostly takes place through the activity of denitrifying bacteria such as Pseudomonas. They convert nitrites and nitrates back to molecular nitrogen and return it to atmosphere. These bacteria are anaerobic and use nitrates as oxidizing agent instead of oxygen. Therefore, in well acrated soils their activity is restricted and soil nitrogen is not lost. The lost nitrogen of the soil is made up by fixation of nitrogen from atmosphere.