Establishing long-term nitrogen response of global cereals to assess sustainable fertilizer rates.

Insight into the response of cereal yields to nitrogen fertilizer is fundamental to improving nutrient management and policies to sustain economic crop benefits and food sufficiency with minimum nitrogen pollution. Here we propose a new method to assess long-term (LT) regional sustainable nitrogen inputs. The core is a novel scaled response function between normalized yield and total net nitrogen input.

Quantification of global and national nitrogen budgets for crop production.

Input-output estimates of nitrogen on cropland are essential for improving nitrogen management and better understanding the global nitrogen cycle. Here, we compare 13 nitrogen budget datasets covering 115 countries and regions over 1961-2015. Although most datasets showed similar spatiotemporal patterns, some annual estimates varied widely among them, resulting in large ranges and uncertainty.

Meta-analysis of yield and nitrous oxide outcomes for nitrogen management in agriculture.

Improved nitrogen (N) use is key to future food security and environmental sustainability. While many regions still experience N shortages, agriculture is the leading global emitter of N O due to losses exacerbated by N surpluses in other regions. In order to sustainably maintain or increase food production, farmers and their advisors need a comprehensive and actionable understanding of how nutrient management affects both yield and N O emissions, particularly in tropical and subtropical agroecosystems.

Managing nutrients to mitigate soil pollution.

The health of soils is key not only to agricultural productivity, but to all the ecosystem services provided in terms of maintaining the quality of water, air, and food. Nutrient inputs to agricultural soils produce large benefits to human health, including the provisioning of calories and protein supporting at least half the human population, enhancing micronutrient bioavailability in food, improving crop quality, and strengthening tolerance to plant disease. With appropriate nutrient stewardship, such inputs contribute to soil health and prevent soil degradation.

Inconsistencies undermine the conclusion that agriculture is a dominant source of NO in California.

Almaraz . reported that agricultural soils are a dominant source of NO pollution in California (20 to 32% of total statewide NO emissions). However, this conclusion may be undermined by the lack of agreement between their modeled estimates and previously reported empirical measurements, the extrapolation of NO fluxes during hot moments to derive annual estimates, and the overestimation of nitrogen fertilizer consumption in California.

Transforming soil phosphorus fertility management strategies to support the delivery of multiple ecosystem services from agricultural systems.

Despite greater emphasis on holistic phosphorus (P) management, current nutrient advice delivered at farm-scale still focuses almost exclusively on agricultural production. This limits our ability to address national and international strategies for the delivery of multiple ecosystem services (ES). Currently there is no operational framework in place to manage P fertility for multiple ES delivery and to identify the costs of potentially sacrificing crop yield and/or quality.

Potassium fertilization effects on isoflavone concentrations in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.].

Soybean isoflavone concentrations vary widely, but the contribution of soil fertility and nutrient management to this variability is unknown. Field experiments from 1998 to 2000 on soils with low to high exchangeable potassium (K) concentrations evaluated K application and placement effects on isoflavone concentrations and composition of soybean in various tillage and row-width systems. Soybean seed yield and concentrations of daidzein, genistein, glycitein, leaf K, and seed K were measured.