8 October 2019
Swarbreck SM, Wang M, Wang Y, Kindred D, Sylvester-Bradley R, Shi Weiming, Varinderpal-Singh, Bentley AR, Griffiths H - Trends in Plant Science, 2019
Current practice for managing nitrogen (N) use for cereal production are not environmentally sustainable. Overuse of N fertilizers is a global problem for millions of farmers who must decide on N applications whether, when and how much.
A combination of improved advice on N management for specific cropping regimes is required, together with a breeding target of new commercial crop varieties with sustainable yields and a low N requirement.
While N use efficiency (NUE) has been a useful concept for quantifying the genetic differences in N uptake and utilization, the concept of an economic N optimum derived from N yield dose–response curves may provide new insights for lowering the N requirement.