TY - JOUR

T1 - Phosphorus uptake from struvite is modulated by the nitrogen form applied

AU - Robles-Aguilar, Ana A.

AU - Schrey, Silvia D.

AU - Postma, Johannes A.

AU - Temperton, Vicky M.

AU - Jablonowski, Nicolai D.

N1 - The work was conducted within the ManureEcoMine project, funded by the European Community's Framework Programme ( FP7 /2007–2013 ) under Grant Agreement n° 603744 . We would like to thank Thomas Bodewein for expert advice and assistance with measurements and trial management and Christoph Briese for helping with the image analyzes. The authors are grateful to Lucy Harrison for the technical support and colleagues from ZEA‐3 (Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH) for the chemical analysis of the plant, fertilizer and substrate samples. We thank cordially Jose Correa for his help in the statistical analysis. We highly acknowledge the financial support of numerous students by the DAAD and IAESTE program, providing great support for this experiment. Many thanks to Dr. Jiayin Pang , The University of Western Australia, for her valuable comments on the first draft of this manuscript.

PY - 2020/2/1

Y1 - 2020/2/1

N2 - Next to nitrogen, phosphorus (P) is the most limiting nutrient for plant production worldwide. To secure food production, new nutrient management strategies using alternative P sources instead of mined P fertilizers need to be implemented. Struvite (MgNH4PO4 · 6 H2O) is a promising example of a recycled mineral P fertilizer. Besides positive agronomic results regarding crop yields, further investigations are required to improve the use efficiency of the product and thereby increase its value. Using an automated plant phenotyping platform, we investigated the dynamic response to struvite by two plant species (lupine and maize) with diverse P acquisition strategies in an acidic sandy substrate. Although at three weeks after germination both maize and lupine had reduced leaf area in the struvite treatments compared to the commercial triple superphosphate (TSP), from week four onwards struvite plants grew larger than the TSP-treated plants, indicating a slow release fertilizing effect. Greater P uptake efficiency (g / root length), but reduced root length were observed in the combined treatment of struvite and ammonium, in comparison to struvite and nitrate. We propose that rhizosphere acidification in response to ammonium uptake may enhance P recovery from struvite. A possible additional acidification effect by lupine root exudation might explain the higher P uptake efficiency in this species compared to maize. We conclude that struvite combined with ammonium can be used as a sustainable slow-release P fertilizer on acidic sandy soils.

AB - Next to nitrogen, phosphorus (P) is the most limiting nutrient for plant production worldwide. To secure food production, new nutrient management strategies using alternative P sources instead of mined P fertilizers need to be implemented. Struvite (MgNH4PO4 · 6 H2O) is a promising example of a recycled mineral P fertilizer. Besides positive agronomic results regarding crop yields, further investigations are required to improve the use efficiency of the product and thereby increase its value. Using an automated plant phenotyping platform, we investigated the dynamic response to struvite by two plant species (lupine and maize) with diverse P acquisition strategies in an acidic sandy substrate. Although at three weeks after germination both maize and lupine had reduced leaf area in the struvite treatments compared to the commercial triple superphosphate (TSP), from week four onwards struvite plants grew larger than the TSP-treated plants, indicating a slow release fertilizing effect. Greater P uptake efficiency (g / root length), but reduced root length were observed in the combined treatment of struvite and ammonium, in comparison to struvite and nitrate. We propose that rhizosphere acidification in response to ammonium uptake may enhance P recovery from struvite. A possible additional acidification effect by lupine root exudation might explain the higher P uptake efficiency in this species compared to maize. We conclude that struvite combined with ammonium can be used as a sustainable slow-release P fertilizer on acidic sandy soils.

KW - ammonium

KW - nitrate

KW - recycled phosphorus

KW - root morphology modification

KW - slow-release fertilizer

KW - struvite

KW - Ecosystems Research

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85075419025&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/jpln.201900109

DO - 10.1002/jpln.201900109

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85075419025

VL - 183

SP - 80

EP - 90

JO - Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science

JF - Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science

SN - 1436-8730

IS - 1

ER -