Finetuning fertilizers for better crop yields

Many agricultural soils are deficient in the nutrient zinc despite the fact that farmers use fertilizers enriched with the element.

This limits crop yields and reduces food quality. It’s estimated that roughly a third of the global population consume foods low in zinc, which can increase sickness and death in early childhood, as well as impaired growth and cognition.

Using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), researchers from the University of Adelaide in Australia investigated how to manufacture more efficient zinc-enriched fertilizers.

The HXMA beamline at CLS was used by researchers to examine at the molecular level what happens to the water solubility of zinc which is its ability to dissolve in water when it’s added to ammonium phosphate fertilizer.