Why is ammonia important in fertilisers?

1)It gets oxidised to make nitric acid (HNO3), which is the source of the nitrate ion (NO3-). 2)Ammonia can be neutralised by nitric acid, to make the salt ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3). This can be represented by the following equation: Ammonium hydroxide + nitric acid → ammonium nitrate + water NH4OH + HNO3 → NH4NO3 + H2O