More efficient utilisation of nitrogen and phosphate without leaching

  Agrosystems Research
  Plant Breeding
  Biointeractions and Plant Health
  Biometris
  Bioscience
  Research facilities
  Projects
  Sustainable production and climate change
  Global crop production
  Developing cropping systems that require lower inputs
  More efficient utilisation of nitrogen and phosphate without leaching
  Disease suppressiveness of soil reduces pesticides use
  Silt vegetables, seaweed and sea fish from one mixed silt farm
  Making crops resistent to insects
  Giving plants sustained resistance via genetic research
  Making plants suitable for poor or silty soils
  Biological control reduces consumption of chemical pesticides
  DNA techniques for exact detection of pests and diseases
  New techniques can overcome objections genetic modification
  Crop protection only where really needed
  Drought-tolerant potatoes on the horizon
  Restricting large harvest losses caused by viruses
  Predicting when cereals are containing fungal toxins
  Making plants suitable for a different climate
  Better detection of exotic organisms
  Effect of climate change on land use
  Effect of climate change on genetic variation within a species
  Farmers think about consequences of climate change for their farm
  Climate change increases chance of harvest failures by pests and diseases
  Health
  Plant-based raw materials
  Systems biology

Manure application in spring on arable clay soil prior to potato planting.

How can farmers still attain good yields while only being allowed to use less nitrogen and phosphate. And how much further must these so-called ‘use criteria’ still be decreased to meet the environmental criteria? This is what scientists of Plant Research International are investigating by a combination of field experiments, technological innovations and model work.

Farmers are meanwhile used to the idea that they may not apply unlimited amounts of fertiliser. They must observe the criteria for the use of phosphate, nitrogen and animal manure. But the current criteria are not the end. The government has already announced that these use criteria must be further reduced to meet the European Nitrate Directive and the Water Framework Directive. In the longer term this should result in an agriculture with much less leaching of nutrients to the groundwater, to ditches, lakes and rivers, and to the North Sea.

The criteria will be lowered step by step. Our scientists are on behalf of the authorities investigating the effects of the criteria: can farmers still achieve a good yield with lower criteria? And how much nitrogen is still leaching at a certain criterion? The scientists are also investigating whether the criteria can be varied: e.g., whether they can be increased when crop yields are higher.

Precision fertilisation
The scientists are at the same time searching for methods for the most efficient utilisation of the applied fertilisers; this should result in a further reduction of the emissions while yield losses remain limited. Precision fertilisation is an example; a collective name for a series of techniques for applying exactly the right amount of fertiliser at exactly the right place. This involves continuous monitoring of crop and soil throughout the season. This results in the lowest possible amount of fertiliser not being taken up by the crop. These methods are mainly used for nitrogen fertilisation. For phosphate our scientists are working on fertilisation with small ‘start applications’ close to the plant; these help to get the plant going in early spring. This makes applications over the total field unnecessary if these are not required. This method is a perfect solution on young marine clay soils and for crops with a high phosphate demand.

  
Print this page

Contact
Hein ten Berge
Agrosystems
business card
»  more Contact