Increased nitrogen use efficiency in crop production can provide economic and environmental benefits

Langholtz, Matthew; Davison, Brian H.; Jager, Henriëtte I.; Eaton, Laurence; Baskaran, Latha; Davis, Maggie; Brandt, Craig C.

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143602

Cited by 25 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…The Phenomenal growth in the use of fertilizers for crop production, coupled with poor nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) is increasingly polluting the soil, water and air, which adversely affects health, biodiversity, and climate change (Sutton et al, 2019 ). A recent simulation study showed that a 20% increase in the crop NUE can save $743 million per year in the USA alone (Langholtz et al, 2021 ). Therefore, improving the crop NUE remains a highly desirable economic and environmental goal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meta-Analysis of Yield-Related and N-Responsive Genes Reveals Chromosomal Hotspots, Key Processes and Candidate Genes for Nitrogen-Use Efficiency in Rice

2021

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Nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) is a function of N-response and yield that is controlled by many genes and phenotypic parameters that are poorly characterized. This study compiled all known yield-related genes in rice and mined them from the N-responsive microarray data to find 1,064 NUE-related genes. Many of them are novel genes hitherto unreported as related to NUE, including 80 transporters, 235 transcription factors (TFs), 44 MicroRNAs (miRNAs), 91 kinases, and 8 phosphatases. They were further shortlisted to 62 NUE-candidate genes following hierarchical methods, including quantitative trait locus (QTL) co-localization, functional evaluation in the literature, and protein–protein interactions (PPIs). They were localized to chromosomes 1, 3, 5, and 9, of which chromosome 1 with 26 genes emerged as a hotspot for NUE spanning 81% of the chromosomes. Further, co-localization of the NUE genes on NUE-QTLs resolved differences in the earlier studies that relied mainly on N-responsive genes regardless of their role in yield. Functional annotations and PPIs for all the 1,064 NUE-related genes and also the shortlisted 62 candidates revealed transcription, redox, phosphorylation, transport, development, metabolism, photosynthesis, water deprivation, and hormonal and stomatal function among the prominent processes. In silico expression analysis confirmed differential expression of the 62 NUE-candidate genes in a tissue/stage-specific manner. Experimental validation in two contrasting genotypes revealed that high NUE rice shows better photosynthetic performance, transpiration efficiency and internal water-use efficiency in comparison to low NUE rice. Feature Selection Analysis independently identified one-third of the common genes at every stage of hierarchical shortlisting, offering 6 priority targets to validate for improving the crop NUE.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meta-Analysis of Yield-Related and N-Responsive Genes Reveals Chromosomal Hotspots, Key Processes and Candidate Genes for Nitrogen-Use Efficiency in Rice

2021

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“…To enhance nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) and minimizing N losses effectively, several strategies have been employed in recent years [21]. Use of urease and nitrification inhibitors is an effective technique in minimizing the N losses [22], but urease and nitrification inhibitors are too expensive for common farmer [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subsurface-Applied Coated Nitrogen Fertilizer Enhanced Wheat Production by Improving Nutrient-Use Efficiency with Less Ammonia Volatilization

et al. 2021

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Nitrogen (N) is an essential plant nutrient, therefore, N-deficient soils affect plant growth and development. The excessive and unwise application of N fertilizers result in nutrient losses and lower nutrient use efficiency that leads to the low crop productivity. Ammonia volatilization causes a major loss after N fertilization that causes environmental pollution. This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of coating and uncoating N fertilizer in enhancing yield and nutrient-use efficiency with reduced ammonia emissions. The recommended rate of nitrogen and phosphorus, urea and di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) fertilizers were coated manually with 1% polymer solution. DAP (coated/uncoated) and potassium were applied at the time of sowing as subsurface application. While urea (coated/uncoated) was applied as surface and subsurface application. Results showed that nutrient use efficiencies of wheat were found to be maximum with the subsurface application of coated N fertilizer which increased nutrient-use efficiency by 44.57 (N), 44.56 (P) and 44.53% (K) higher than the surface application of uncoated N fertilizer. Ammonia emissions were found the lowest with subsurface-applied coated N fertilizer. Thus, coated fertilizer applied via subsurface was found the best technique to overcome the ammonia volatilization with an improvement in the yield and nutrient-use efficiency of wheat.

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“…Our results confirm the potential importance of controlling agricultural emissions for improving air quality in terms of PM 2.5 , which could be practical as there are numerous feasible options for reducing agricultural emissions through optimizing livestock and crop production systems (e.g., Ti et al, 2019). Incentivizing these and other practices that improve agricultural nitrogen use efficiency (e.g., including livestock production with cropping, synchronizing nitrogen supply with crop demand) (e.g., Fageria and Baligar, 2005;Langholtz et al, 2021) can be one of the keys to mitigate the air quality impacts of reactive nitrogen input without compromising agricultural productivity (e.g., Guo et al, 2020). Furthermore, as increasing reactive nitrogen input and land use change are the two of the main strategies to meet the global demand for biomassbased products in the future (Foley et al, 2011), the distinct yet significant impacts of agricultural emissions and land use change on O 3 , PM 2.5 and nitrogen deposition should be investigated as part of the overall environmental impacts of land system changes, especially when there is a trade-off between increasing land input and cropland expansion (e.g., Lotze-Campen et al, 2010;Mauser et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the competing effects of contemporary land management vs. land cover changes on global air quality

Wong

Geddes

2021

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. Our work explores the impact of two important dimensions of land system changes, land use and land cover change (LULCC) as well as direct agricultural reactive nitrogen (Nr) emissions from soils, on ozone (O3) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in terms of air quality over contemporary (1992 to 2014) timescales. We account for LULCC and agricultural Nr emissions changes with consistent remote sensing products and new global emission inventories respectively estimating their impacts on global surface O3 and PM2.5 concentrations as well as Nr deposition using the GEOS-Chem global chemical transport model. Over this time period, our model results show that agricultural Nr emission changes cause a reduction of annual mean PM2.5 levels over Europe and northern Asia (up to −2.1 µg m−3) while increasing PM2.5 levels in India, China and the eastern US (up to +3.5 µg m−3). Land cover changes induce small reductions in PM2.5 (up to −0.7 µg m−3) over Amazonia, China and India due to reduced biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emissions and enhanced deposition of aerosol precursor gases (e.g., NO2, SO2). Agricultural Nr emission changes only lead to minor changes (up to ±0.6 ppbv) in annual mean surface O3 levels, mainly over China, India and Myanmar. Meanwhile, our model result suggests a stronger impact of LULCC on surface O3 over the time period across South America; the combination of changes in dry deposition and isoprene emissions results in −0.8 to +1.2 ppbv surface ozone changes. The enhancement of dry deposition reduces the surface ozone level (up to −1 ppbv) over southern China, the eastern US and central Africa. The enhancement of soil NO emission due to crop expansion also contributes to surface ozone changes (up to +0.6 ppbv) over sub-Saharan Africa. In certain regions, the combined effects of LULCC and agricultural Nr emission changes on O3 and PM2.5 air quality can be comparable (>20 %) to anthropogenic emission changes over the same time period. Finally, we calculate that the increase in global agricultural Nr emissions leads to a net increase in global land area (+3.67×106km2) that potentially faces exceedance of the critical Nr load (>5 kg N ha−1 yr−1). Our result demonstrates the impacts of contemporary LULCC and agricultural Nr emission changes on PM2.5 and O3 in terms of air quality, as well as the importance of land system changes for air quality over multidecadal timescales.

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Increased nitrogen use efficiency in crop production can provide economic and environmental benefits

Cited by 25 publications

References 64 publications

Meta-Analysis of Yield-Related and N-Responsive Genes Reveals Chromosomal Hotspots, Key Processes and Candidate Genes for Nitrogen-Use Efficiency in Rice

Meta-Analysis of Yield-Related and N-Responsive Genes Reveals Chromosomal Hotspots, Key Processes and Candidate Genes for Nitrogen-Use Efficiency in Rice

Subsurface-Applied Coated Nitrogen Fertilizer Enhanced Wheat Production by Improving Nutrient-Use Efficiency with Less Ammonia Volatilization

Examining the competing effects of contemporary land management vs. land cover changes on global air quality

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