Plant growers sometimes sterilize their potting soil by heating it to high temperatures to kill pathogens that might be in the soil. How might heat sterilization of the soil affect the amount of nitrate available to tomato plants grown in that soil?

The plants would have fewer nitrates available because the nitrate producing bacteria would be killed by the high temp

The correct answer would be that the plants would have fewer nitrates accessible as the nitrate-generating bacteria would have also got killed.

Explanation:

Prior to the discovery of the Haber process, the prime procedure of extracting nitrogen from the air and getting it into the soil so that the plants could utilize it was by the procedure of nitrogen fixation done by the bacteria in the soil. Due to heat sterilization, the nitrogen fixation bacteria present in the soil would have got killed resulting in less availability of nitrates in the soil.