Soil nutrient management: fueling agroecosystem sustainability
Agricultural production must approximately double to support global population by 2050. Practices optimizing crop yield, nutrient use efficiency (NUE; fraction of applied nutrient taken up by crop) and environmental quality are essential. Nutrient management plans specify needed crop nutrients and p...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis Group
2020-11-01
|
| Series: | International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2020.1792679 |
| Summary: | Agricultural production must approximately double to support global population by 2050. Practices optimizing crop yield, nutrient use efficiency (NUE; fraction of applied nutrient taken up by crop) and environmental quality are essential. Nutrient management plans specify needed crop nutrients and practices for mitigating losses, however seasonal dynamics are generally poorly accounted for. Given the profound impact of weather on crop growth and nutrient dynamics, more widespread use of models driven by weather and spatially explicit soil processes offers an opportunity to improve NUE and mitigate farm risk. Maize and sugarcane require large amounts of nitrogen (N) and both advanced tools and routine testing are needed to improve NUE. Real-time crop yield, weather and soil data for precision agriculture is becoming commonplace on large farms. Progress with dynamic simulation models for maize suggest that including weather and soil processes into predictive models improves NUE compared to static N rate recommendation. Whole-farm dairy system models aim to simulate all major biophysical farm components to better quantify dynamic nutrient loss paths. Greater adoption of precision-based soil nutrient management practices offers the potential to enhance agroecosystem NUE, environmental quality and mitigate crop production risk. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1473-5903 1747-762X |