Bemesting in de 21e eeuw : Smart Fertilization

Adding sustainability to productivity

And

Information market!

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The Future; SMART fertilization technologies

Dr. Prem Bindraban

Director Virtual Fertilizer Research Center

Washington, USA

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SMART fertilization technologies –

Innovative future perspectives

Virtual Fertilizer Research Center presented by

Prem S. Bindraban

SEMINAR on SMART FERTILIZATION Wageningen, 28th November 2014

pbindraban@vfrc.org

Virtual Fertilizer Research Center

• The VFRC is

–A research initiative to foster the creation of the next generation of fertilizers and production technologies

– to help feed the world’s growing population and provide sustainable food security

Semi-autonomous unit of

The pharmaceutical and seed industries spend billions on R&D.

Pfizer, Glaxo, Merck ~ 16% of revenues is

invested in R&D spending

Syngenta, Monsanto ~ 9% of revenues is

invested in R&D spending

~ 0.1% of revenues in R&D for new products and

new technologies

Industry Research and Development Spending

Fuglie et al., 2011. Research Investments and Market Structure in the Food Processing, Agricultural Input, and Biofuel Industries Worldwide. ERR-130. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Econ. Res. Serv. December 2011.

Global role for fertilizers / industry

• Food security • Increase production volume, reduce risk

• Ecologically sustainable production • Maintain soil health, water quality, biodiversity • Reduce Green House Gas emissions, ;land expansion

• Poverty alleviation • Ensure income and livelihood

• Improvement human health • Better food quality

VFRC driver to meet societal objectives of fertilizers

Basic processes

Soil weathering

P, K, Mg, S, Ca, Fe,

Mn, Zn, B, Mo, Cu,

Cl, …

N-fixation

(legumes)

Livestock

Consumption

by humans

Natural ecosystems

Fertilizer

Manufacture

& Mining

Cereal Yields (ton per hectare)

Inert N2 into reactive N

Inert P, K, … into reactive P, K, …

NPK

(N2O), (NOx), (NH3)

(NO3-), (PO4

3-)

20-80% lost

Basic concepts

Livestock

Consumption

by humans

Natural ecosystems

Fertilizer

Manufacture

& Mining

Cereal Yields (ton per hectare)

NPK

Food 60 Mt N 4 Mt P

Annually 105 Mt N 18 Mt P

Annually 105 Mt N - Recycle 18 Mt P - Recycle

NPK

Instantaneous uptake

Fertilizer Nutrient Composition

• Poor soils – No/poor crop response to NPK

– Soil amendment needed (Organic Matter, Lime, …)

– Micronutrient deficiencies

• ISFM to include micronutrient containing fertilizers

• Human induced micronutrient deficiencies (India, …)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Control NPK+Manure

NPKno

manure+SMNs

Mai

ze Y

ield

Mt

ha-1

Burundi, average of 16 sites

Data: John Wendt - IFDC

• Well-endowed soils: NPK suffice to increase yield – Europe, Coastal regions US, Coastal regions China, Indo-

Ganges India, Indonesia Green revolution

(Micro) nutrient uptake

• 10 kg S/ha

• 2-3 kg Zn/ha

• 1 kg B/ha

Uptake efficiency?

• Fe – 175 • Mn – 8 • Zn – 26 • Cu – 4 • B – 5 • Mo – 0.6

• N – 23500 • P – 3700 • K – 12600 • Mg – 1400 • Ca – 100 • S – 1500

Gram per Ton Maize

Intervention Options

fertilization Fertilizer

products

1

losses

air

runoff

leaching 4

uptake

soil processes

& rooted volume

Soil

unavailable for plants

plant available

5

3

2

9 10

exudates Micro-organisms

foliar application

seed coating

stem infusion

6

7

8 11

Phyllosphere bacteria

harvest

crop residue

Crop product

12

From bulk chemistry to fine-, bio- and nano-bio-chemistry

Intake/Uptake

NanoParticle in shoot; Dimkpa

Bulk Chemistry

Delivery mechanisms Recycling

Bio-, bio-nano-chemistry

Leapfrog development

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

N P K SZn B CuMo (All)

N P K SZn B (noCu, Mo)

N P S ZnB Cu Mo

(no K)

N P K ZnB Cu Mo

(no S)

N P K S BCu Mo(no Zn)

N P K SZn Cu Mo

(no B)

5871

4197

3390

5039

4453 4338

+

Micro / secondary Primary / secondary

Soil Plant

BacPR Organic

acids Soil Plant

Bio-Nano-PR

Acids Ore

Nano-APR

Nano-PR Soil Plant Grinding

Nano/microorganism: Coating/mixing

with (micro) nutrients; Contaminants

Compound: NPK Etc

BacIPR Bio –industrial

acids

P Pathways

Ore

PR

P-products Acids

P-G

P-Rec

Spatial ground rules Generic modelling

Farm experiments

(micro-) nutrients recommendations

Research Areas

1. Plant nutrient dynamics & metabolism timing and amount; entry point plant, exudates, micro-organisms, …

2. Fertilizer bio-chemical packaging nutrients chemical, bio-, bio-nano, micro-organism,

3. Delivery mechanisms spray, infusion, seed coating, granules, prills, bio-trigger, applicators

4. In the context of selected a. Geo-spatially specific fertilizer nutrient combinations and amounts b. Cropping system (vegetables, legumes, cereals, trees, tubers, fiber, plantain, grass, …)

c. Agro-production system (wet/dry/cold, good/poor soil health, microbes)

NanoParticle in shoot; Dimkpa

Thank You

Innovative fertilizers… A winning game for all

Precision fertilization with animal manure

Dr. Jaap Schröder

Wageningen University

Plant Research International

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Animal manure and precision farming:

no contradiction in terms

Jaap Schröder

Content

Aspects of precision improvement in crop production

● What type of NP source?

● How much of it?

● When exactly?

● Where exactly (‘placement’)?

Placement

● Positioning in vertical plane

● Positioning in horizontal plane (‘band application’)

Band application of manure on maize land

Conclusions

What type of NP source?

Food production comes with by-products including manures, so:

Manures: use them, despite complexity, if alone because they contain P and micro-nutrients.

Do not try to cover N demand with just by-products,

Precision = use manures but complement them with fertilizer N or clover N.

Product N/P ratio:

applied available required taken-up

common cattle slurry 6.3 5.0

liquid fraction of separated pig slurry 5.1 4.6

cattle FYM 4.3 3.2

common pig slurry 3.5 3.0

solid fraction of separated pig slurry 1.9 1.5

grass 9.4 8.5

silage maize 10.8 7.6

wheat grain 7.4 6.0

How much?

Precision = take account of other sources (including residual

manure-N), crop N demand and expected N uptake efficiency

When exactly?

Gut feeling: splitting sounds OK, however:

● Too great a time lag between diagnosis and spreading

opportunity

● Risk of positioning into dry, unrooted part of the soil profile

● Risk of root damage if mechanically incorporated

● Timely availability is needed in view of high demands per

unit root length, despite the low daily nutrient uptake rate

per hectare

P uptake rate per unit root length in maize

Where exactly?

Vertical plane

● Sufficiently deep to avoid ammonia loss

● Sufficiently shallow to be plant-available as soon as possible

after crop emergence

Horizontal plane

Rooting patterns of maize

Mineral P starter in maize: still a routine

Farmers doubt the timely availability of manure P

Farmers reluctant to refrain from mineral P starters (applied during planting) in addition to prior manure applications

This routine increases:

● the soil P surplus > water pollution

● the expenses on the export of excess manure

● depletion rate of fossil rock P reserves

Manure placement: experiments

Hypothesis: banding of manure close to anticipated position of maize row can replace mineral starter P

Experiments:

● 1993-2012: 14 field trials on sandy soils

● Maize planted at the common row distance of 0.75 m

● Manure rate: 130 kg N and 45 P2O5 ha-1 yr-1

● Manure placement (supported by RTK-GPS):

● Randomly injected relative to future row versus

band-injected 0.00-0.10 m next to future row

● WUR-PSG: PRI and PPO-AGV (Eur. J. Agron.: in press)

Manure placement: treatments

Manure placement: results (1)

DM yield of silage maize (Mg ha-1 yr-1) as affected by banding of manure

Experiments Manure rate Application mineral P-starter

(kg N ha-1) method (kg P2O5 ha-1)

0 47

1-11 0 11.7 a

130 random injection 12.8 b 14.2 c

130 band injection 14.0 c

1-14 0 12.5 a

130 random injection 14.1 b

130 band injection 15.2 c

P concentration of maize shoots as affected by

manure placement

Manure placement: results (2)

Subsurface banding of manure substituted starters

Magnitude of this effect not related to Pw or weather and not reflected in shoot P concentration

Effect nevertheless attributed to improved P availability

Banding reduces N and P surpluses of farms

Conclusions

Smart fertilization: more than just a better placement:

Precision =which type of fertilizer, how much, when, where (“4 R’s”)?

When and where issues: bear the root system in mind!

Manure placement improves NUE and PUE of maize cropping system: ‘more with less’ if you like

Still to do:

● Merits in view of the present Dutch P soil test (PPAE)

● Evaluation on heavier soil types

● Cost benefit analysis

Thank you for your attention

References

Schröder, J.J. et al., 1996. Neth J Agric Sci 44: 209-225.

Schröder, J.J. et al., 1997. Neth. J. Agric. Sci. 45: 249-261.

Schröder, J.J., 2005. Biores. Techn. 92: 253-261.

Schröder, J.J. et al., 2013. Proceedings Ramiran, Versailles, France.

Schröder, J.J. et al., 2011. Chemosphere 84: 822–831

Schröder, J.J., 2014. Natural Resources (in press)

Schröder, J.J. et al., 2014. Eur. J. Agronomy (in press)

Smart Fertilization in Africa

Dr. Peter van Erp

SoilCares

Wageningen

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(Smart) Fertilization in Africa

SoilCares Mobile Soil testing concept

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Outline Presentation - Background - (Smart) Fertilization in Africa - SoilCares Sensor technology - Some (mapping) results

39

40

SoilCares - Part of Dutch Sprouts Holding - Aim: Development and implementation of affordable sensing

techniques for (mobile) soil and plant testing. - SoilCares Holding has two private companies

- SoilCares ltd - Implementation, roll out of soil testing concept - Director: Reinder van der Meer - Located in Kenia, Nairobi - About 15 fte personel

- SoilCares Research BV - Responsible for (sensor)technology and

recommendations - Director: Peter van Erp - Located in Wageningen (Netherlands) - About 15 fte personel (mostly PhD)

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(Smart) fertilization in Africa

• Essential part of realization targets regarding food supply/safety, etc

• Starts with the determination of the actual soil fertility status

• Requires affordable soil testing (cheap, quick and reliable)

43

(Smart) fertilization

44

Price / quality

Price

Quality

Large farmers

Intermediate

Small farmers

- more precision - more parameters

45

Price / quality under pressure?

Price

Quality

Large farmers

Medium farmers

Small farmers

- more precision - more parameters

(Affordable) soil testing

46

47

Soil testing (wet chemistry)

48

Soil testing using the electromagnetic spectrum

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SoilCares mobile soil testing concept

makes use of the interaction of soil particles with (part of

the) electromagnetic spectrum

50

SoilCares sensor technology

51

Which one has highest organic matter content ?

Which one is the clay soil?

Which one has highest clay content?

Your own sensor technology

52

- Your eyes: sensor for the visible light range of the electromagnetic spectrum

- Your sensor (i.e. eyes): determine differences in colour, structures and shapes

- Your brains: contains a calibration set enables you to translate your sensor (eye) information in soil characteristics

- A specialist: has a larger calibration set and is able to estimate/quantify the % organic matter, % clay content etc.

The electromagnetic spectrum

53

54

What about the skeleton of this musican?

55

X-Ray can help you

Mid Infra-red soil information

56

57

Core activity: extract soil fertility information from results of

different, non-destructive sensor technologies

Calibration laboratory

58

- Routine wet chemistry analysis

- Data of different sensors

- Calibration/prediction models

Actual parameters

59

60

61

Some results

SoilCares movie

62

Mapping results (Spring 2014)

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64

65

Typical soil fertility soil classes (=soil Archetype)

66

Main soil archetypes

67

Blend archetypes for 5 t maize per ha

68

Main blend archetypes at planting for 5 t/ha maize

69

Conclusions

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- (Smart) fertilization requires affordable soil testing to start with - Sensor technology makes soil testing affordable - SoilCares mobile soil testing concept has proven its value

- SoilCares soil testing results contributes to soil fertility

knowledge and approaches in Africa

Thank you for your attention

Questions?

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Results calibration models 2013

(Kenyan set: root mean square error of validation)

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Parameter “Old” SC-New

2010/2011 (2013)

Exch Ca (mmol+/kg) 29,2 17,4

Clay (g/kg) 73 46,9

Exch K (mmol+/kg) 5 1,02

Exch Mg (mmol+/kg) 11,1 5,88

Organic carbon (g/kg) 5,5 4,26

pH 0,47 0,2

Sand (g/g) 84,7 38,42

Silt (g/kg) 67,5 25,27

Total Nitrogen (g/kg) 0,5 0,31

New calibration data set (starting 2014)

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ISE evaluation program (all laboratories work according NEN) average standard deviation Total organic Carbon (n=15) between within - soil A 4,0% 0,9% 0,3% - soil B 5,3% 0,6% 0,4% pH-H2O (n=16) - soil C 7,0 0,18 0,04 - soil D 7,1 0,15 0,03

calibration models : better not to use results from different laboratories

Fertilizers from processed Manure & Wastes

Dr. Gerard Velthof

Alterra

Wageningen

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Fertilizers From Processed Manure & Wastes

Gerard Velthof, Oene Oenema, and Peter Kuikman

Outline

Introduction

Cases

Mineral concentrate: N – K fertiliser from manure

Phosphorus recovery from wastes

Potential additional benefits of using wastes

Legislation

Conclusions

Challenges

Towards a circular economy; A zero waste programme for Europe (COM 398, 2014)

How to cope with regional manure surpluses?

From urban and organic wastes to valuable products in agriculture?

Safe and environmental sound products, with high use efficiency

EU legislation about use of manure and wastes as fertilizers

Manure surplus

Manure surplus in many regions in EU

High emissions of N, P and greenhouse gases to the environment

Velthof et al. (2014) Grizzetti & Aloe 2007

N leaching Ammonia emission P surplus

Sludge

and

compost

After Van Dijk et al., 2014

Need to increase nutrient use efficiency

Manure and wastes:

● valuable source of organic matter and nutrients

● but sometimes/often contaminated

● price lower than price of mineral fertilizers

Element Value, € m-3

N 1.00

P 1.40

K 1.70

Organic matter 4.20

Total 8.30

Schoumans et al., 2010

Value of pig slurry

Case 1. Mineral concentrates

Production of mineral concentrate

Mass balances of treatment plants

Hoeksma and Buisonjé (2012)

Composition (2008-2014; average 160 samples)

Hoeksma, 2014

Untreated slurry Mineral concentrate

Dry matter g/kg 62 33

Total N g/kg 5.5 7.1

NH4 –N g/kg 3.7 6.4

P2O5 g/kg 3.2 0.4

K g/kg 3.8 7.2

pH 7.7 7.9

EC mS/cm 26 57

Ntotal/P2O5 2 69

NH4-N/Ntotal 0.68 0.90

N fertiliser value (NFRV): pot experiments

NFRV, % of calcium ammonium nitrate fertiliser

Crop Injected mineral

concentrate

Injected pig slurry

Reference

Grass 86 72 Ehlert et al. (2012)

Swiss chard 87 72 Ehlert et al. (2012)

Grass 96 79 Klop et al. (2012)

Grass 93 76 Rietra and Velthof (2014)

N fertiliser value (NFRV): field experiments

NFRV, % of calcium ammonium nitrate fertiliser

Crop Soil Year NFRV Reference

Potato Clay 2009 75 Van Geel et al. (2012)

Potato Sand 2009 84 Van Geel et al. (2012)

Potato Clay 2010 76 Van Geel et al. (2012)

Potato Sand 2010 81 Van Geel et al. (2012)

Maize Sand 2010 72 Schröder et al. (2012)

Maize Sand 2011 84 Schröder et al. (2012)

Grassland Sand and clay 2009 54 Holshof and van Middelkoop (2014)

Grassland Sand and clay 2010 71 Holshof and van Middelkoop (2014)

Grassland Sand 2011 80 Holshof and van Middelkoop (2014)

Grassland Sand 2012 81 Holshof and van Middelkoop (2014)

Case 2.

Phosphorus recovery from manure & wastes

Phosphorus use in the EU-27 in 2005

Non-food

materials

& detergents

Crops & food

products

Animal feed

& P additives

Mineral P

fertilizer

Solid & liquid

organic wastes

Organic wastes

Non-food export

Organic residues

& wastes

Crop & food

export

Manure losses

Manure export

Leaching & runoff

Seed export

Input Output

Soil [150,000]

Flows and stocks in Gg = Mkg = kton P per year

After Van Dijk et al., 2014

Availability of P from by-products & wastes

Five manageable & interacting factors:

● chemical form of P

● particle size of product

● amount applied

● application method

● time of application

In addition, soil and crop types, soil P status, weather conditions and crop management, pest & diseases

P fertiliser value, % of Triple Super

Phospate (literature review)

By-product Mean Min Max Observations

Compost 69 37 165 11

Manure, chicken, composted 100 100 100 1

Manure, chicken, solid 199 112 250 3

Manure, dairy, slurry 59 30 92 3

Manure, dairy, solid 121 30 378 13

Sewage sludge 138 75 214 6

Struvite from waste water 117 106 126 6

Struvite from veal manure 126 126 126 1

Struvite, synthetic 143 140 146 2

DCP from waste water 127 127 127 1

Overall short term (< 1 year) 112 30 378 47

Overall long term 80 18 165 28

Oenema et al., 2012

Challenges for recycling of P

Variable composition and P availability

Potential presence of contaminants

Unknown legal status

Low acceptance by farmers

Lack of a proper marketing and distribution

infrastructure

Strategies should be developed for optimal

long-term use of possible P sources

Additional benefits of using wastes

Improvement of soil quality by addition of

● organic matter

● other essential nutrients

Less disposal costs

Combination with strategies to reduce emissions to waters and atmosphere

Combination with energy generation (digestion, incineration)

Legislation

EU Regulation 2003/2003 about fertilisers

● List of approved fertilizers in EU

● Currently under revision

● Status of products from wastes/manures not yet clear

EU Nitrates Directive

● All products of processed manure are considered as manure (application standard 170 kg N per ha)

National fertilizer legislation

● NL: “Meststoffenwet” en “Wet bodembescherming”

DG Entreprise, November 2014

Organic fertilizers and fertilizers from by-products/wastes are a reasonable alternative for mineral P and N fertilizers

Further "industrialisation" of organic fertilizers from wastes needed; traceability, quality and safety aspects

●Research needed on quality/safety of processed wastes

●Extension and adoption of European end-of-waste criteria

The creation of an internal market for such products, as envisaged by the new fertiliser regulation, will stimulate further investments in this sector

Conclusions

Mineral concentrate: liquid N –K fertiliser

● N fertilizer value: 90% in pot and 80% in field experiments

Phosphorus recovery from manure and waste

● Many by-products and wastes; P availability generally good

● Contamination often a problem

● Producers not well-organised

Other potential beneficial aspects of using wastes: soil quality,

lower disposal costs, reduction in emissions, energy generation

EU and national legislation important

Thank you!

Bemesting in de 21e eeuw : Smart Fertilization

Adding sustainability to productivity

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