Edward Cocking is the Director of The Centre for Crop Nitrogen Fixation, which is part of an international network for research on the systemic intracellular colonization of the world's major non-legume crops (especially rice, wheat, maize, sorghum and oil seed rape) by the nitrogen-fixing bacterium Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus.
This involves basic research on the interaction of these crops with G. diazotrophicus for the establishment on non-nodular endosymbiotic nitrogen fixation to enable reduced inputs of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.