By Amanda Kerr
As farmers work to produce reliable harvests for a growing population, nitrogen fertilizer plays an important role in helping them deliver strong crop yields year after year. But applying the right amount of fertilizer is often a challenge, which can cost farmers time and money, while excess fertilizer can lead to environmental impacts.
In an effort to better understand the nitrogen cycle and fertilizer use in agriculture, NC State University researchers have joined an international coalition focused on developing data and tools to transform how nitrogen is managed. The Agricultural Nitrogen Use Efficiency Platform (AgNUE) is a collaborative research network dedicated to enhancing agricultural nitrogen use efficiency by collecting comprehensive data from intensively monitored field sites to improve the accuracy of nitrogen models. The five-year, $34.7 million initiative is supported by $27.2 million in funds from the Novo Nordisk Foundation and $7.5 million from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR).
Alex Woodley, associate professor of crop and soil sciences at NC State, will co-lead the project with Diego Abalos, a professor of agroecology with Aarhus University in Denmark. A total of 11 other universities and institutions in the United States and Europe will also support the AgNUE platform, which Aarhus University will host. NC State will guide research efforts in the U.S., in collaboration with the University of Illinois and Colorado State University.
Source : ncsu.edu