1. Developing ‘N-circle': a prioritised agenda towards ‘closed-loop' agricultural nitrogen cycling?
Roger Sylvester-Bradley1, Xiaotang Ju2, Hongbin Liu3, Pete Smith4
plus 14 others in China5 and 17 others in the UK6.
Presented by Lizzie Sagoo1
1ADAS Boxworth, Battlegate Road, Boxworth, Cambridge, CB23 4NN, UK; 2CAU, Beijing, China; 3CAAS, Beijing, China; 4University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK; 5 9 institutions in China; 6 5 institutions in the UK.
Aim:
Form a bi-national centre to test how agricultural nitrogen (N) emissions relate to N inputs.
Approach, :
Focus on China’s principal farming systems
Estimate N inputs, N transfers & N losses
Test innovations to enhance N recovery throughout the N cycle
Test for high-level synergies between component technologies
Communicate & exchange knowledge
Develop N-Circle quality mark for N efficiency
Expected outcomes and impacts
Better understanding of high-level strategies to enhance sustainable N cycling in agriculture
Evaluation of the potential for sustainable N cycling, and
An agenda to achieve sustainable N cycling in Chinese and European agriculture.
We propose that effective synergies in N cycling are feasible, if multiple innovations in molecular, chemical, micro-biological, agronomic and engineering technologies can be integrated and up- scaled into economically viable systems at field, farm and regional scales.
Contacts & Acknowledgements
For further information contact: or in the UK, and or in China.
N-Circle is one of eight Virtual Joint Centres for research on agricultural nitrogen with China, India or Brazil, supported in the UK by the Newton Fund through the BBSRC.