Institut for Agroøkologi

Project title: 

Improved integration of the phosphorus resources in dairy manure into maize cropping in humid temperate regions

Project description:

Phosphorus is a non-renewable resource and is essential for crop and food production.

Especially maize plants benefit from access to available phosphorus in their early growth stages. Generally maize is grown at livestock farms with an excess of phosphorus in the supplied manure. Despite of this excess, current agronomic practise is to apply inorganic phosporus fertilizer as a starter fertilizer at the time of sowing. The question is how to improve the integration of the phosphorus resources in the dairy manure into maize cropping and hereby obviate the use of inorganic phosphorus starter fertilizer based on rock phosphate.    

The project aims to clarify the factors that are crucial to the availability of manure phosphorus and to clarify interactions between soil properties, manure phosphorus and maize plants, and hereby improve the efficiency of manure phosphorus transforming manure phosphorus into a sustainable phosphorus source in maize production. In this way a strategic use of manure phosphorus is achievable, and the improved utilization of manure phosphorus will lead to cost savings of inorganic fertilizer, increased yield and reduced risk of phosphorus losses.