Adaptation of maize-based food-feed-energy systems to limited phosphate resources
State of the Art
The fate of phosphate in the environment equals an open cycle. Phosphate is supplied by mining and fertilizer production, followed by different steps of phosphate utilisation, including primary production, animal feed, human food and conversion of biomass to energy and raw materials, with accumulation in soils, little return and in particular severe environmental losses. Most importantly, phosphate is a limited essential nutrient (350 years lifetime). It is unknown how the steps within the cycle will react and interact, if phosphate is increasingly limited and economic pressure escalates as a result. Closing cycles and reducing primary phosphate consumption are fundamental future challenges.
Globally, maize is one of the most important crops, with high phosphate sensitivity, therefore, ideal for studying the consequences of phosphate limitation. China and Germany together cover the whole variation of maize production systems in food-feed-energy supply chains and a wide range of climatic conditions.
Research is driven by the hypothesis that under phosphate limited conditions, high productivity and high phosphate use efficiency can be achieved simultaneously by adapting phosphate cycling and availability (sources) to the multipurpose phosphate demands (sinks) in maize based food-feed-energy systems.
About AMAIZE-P
In an interdisciplinary system-oriented approach, thirteen complementary research groups at the China Agricultural University (Beijing) and at the University of Hohenheim (Stuttgart) investigate (1) the genetic potential of maize populations and mechanisms of their ability to adapt to limited phosphate supply, (2) maize cultivation under limited phosphate supply at field scale, (3) mechanistic interactions of related products with their utilization in human and animal nutrition, and phosphate recovery by biomass conversion. (4) An economic evaluation will be done at plot, farm, region and sector levels, taking market effects into consideration. Joint field experiments in China and Germany allow for complementary and comparative analyses. Genetic and molecular approaches, modern spectroscopic methods, economic surveys and modelling approaches at different scales will be used.
Based on supervision contracts, doctoral candidates (PhD students) are guided by individual advisory committees, by invited experts, by members of an international advisory board, and by staff for biometrical and econometric training. The educational programme in China and Germany includes joint block seminars, thematic field trips, case studies, methodological courses, doctoral candidates’ conferences and intercultural training sessions.
