NC State Researchers Join International Research Platform to Improve Nitrogen Use

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 and an affiliate of the North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative, 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.

“Better data is the foundation for better models,” Woodley says. “By working across countries and production systems, AgNUE will significantly improve our ability to predict nitrogen losses and evaluate mitigation strategies under real conditions.”

Although nitrogen fertilizer is needed to produce high-yielding crops, fertilizer overapplication and loss are common, in part due to a lack of site-specific information for precise management strategies. In addition to impacting producer costs, nitrogen loss in the environment can lead to pollution that impacts air quality and waterways. But getting the data to improve application and management practices has been difficult because nitrogen is highly dynamic in its movement, making it hard to directly observe losses.

“If we want to reduce nitrogen losses at scale, we need models that reflect what actually happens in the field,” Abalos says. “AgNUE is designed to close the gap between measurements, models, and real-world decision-making.”

By combining multi-scale modeling, model ensembles, and AI-driven model/data fusion, AgNUE aims to significantly reduce uncertainty in nitrogen balances and losses.

“I am confident that the tools developed through the AgNUE platform can help mitigate climate change globally without compromising crop productivity and food security,” says Claus Felby, vice president for agriculture and food with the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

With comprehensive data collection from 12 intensively monitored field sites across a variety of climates in Europe and the U.S., including two field sites in North Carolina and one in Illinois, AgNUE aims to improve the accuracy of computer models that simulate and predict nitrogen dynamics and assess how different practices affect nitrogen emissions, agricultural productivity and the environment.  

“The data will help develop robust models that can identify best practices for reducing nitrogen losses during the growing cycle based on location and environmental factors,” Woodley says. “The goal is to improve a range of models to the point that they can provide the basis for policy decisions, carbon markets and at the same time provide real-world data to support farmers’ decisions on the adoption of stacked solutions for nitrogen efficiency for their specific region to help maximize the impact of their efforts.”

Five other NC State faculty will collaborate on the AgNUE platform, including:

•  Chris Reberg-Horton, professor of crop and soil sciences
•  Debjani Sihi, assistant professor with the departments of Plant and Microbial Biology and Crop and Soil Sciences
• Camilo Rey-Sanchez, assistant professor of micrometeorology and land-atmosphere interactions
• Erin Rivers, assistant professor of crop and soil sciences
• Luke Gatiboni, professor of crop and soil sciences

The N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative, an interdisciplinary research effort at NC State aimed at solving complex agricultural challenges, played a key role in getting the AgNUE project started, beginning with ideation sessions in 2023 that brought together researchers from NC State and Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Today, the project is primed to offer innovative solutions both in the U.S. and abroad.

“This collaborative research effort can help generate critical data to inform science-based management strategies that strengthen U.S. agriculture’s competitiveness and protect farmer profitability,” says Allison Thomson, FFAR scientific program director. “Ultimately, AgNUE will help ensure farmers can produce abundant food, lower input costs and protect their land for generations to come.”

This post was originally published in College of Agriculture and Life Sciences News.