Desertification is a significant problem for arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions of Earth, whereby grasslands and shrublands become a comparatively barren desert as vegetation disappears over time. This poses an extreme ...
A team of researchers studying the Ngogo community of wild chimpanzees in western Uganda's Kibale National Park for two decades has published a report in Science showing that females in this population can experience menopause ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 26, 2023
0
162
Industrial production of ammonia, primarily for synthetic fertilizer—the fuel for last century's Green Revolution—is one of the world's largest chemical markets, but also one of the most energy intensive.
Materials Science
Jan 11, 2023
0
57
Symbiotic relationships between legumes and the bacteria that grow in their roots are critical for plant survival. Without those bacteria, the plants would have no source of nitrogen, an element that is essential for building ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 11, 2022
0
724
'Superhighways' used by a population of up to 6.5 million Indigenous Australians to navigate the continent tens of thousands of years ago have been revealed by new research using sophisticated modelling of past people and ...
Archaeology
Apr 29, 2021
0
2158
New analysis of the DNA sequence of the male-specific Y chromosomes from all living species of the great ape family helps to clarify our understanding of how this enigmatic chromosome evolved. A clearer picture of the evolution ...
Evolution
Oct 6, 2020
4
1035
Ammonia (NH3) is one of the most commonly produced chemicals worldwide, because of its use as an important ingredient in a broad range of industrial manufacturing processes. For instance, it is pivotal in the production of ...
Materials Science
Jul 15, 2020
1
120
Historically, the oceans have done much of the planet's heavy lifting when it comes to sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Microscopic organisms known collectively as phytoplankton, which grow throughout the ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 17, 2020
17
541
Researchers at the University of Oxford and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered a new gene that improves the yield and fertilizer use efficiency of rice.
Biotechnology
Feb 7, 2020
0
257
Providing seeds with a protective coating that also supplies essential nutrients to the germinating plant could make it possible to grow crops in otherwise unproductive soils, according to new research at MIT.
Ecology
Nov 25, 2019
2
226
Fertilizer (or fertiliser) is any organic or inorganic material of natural or synthetic origin (other than liming materials) that is added to a soil to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants. A recent assessment found that about 40 to 60% of crop yields are attributable to commercial fertilizer use.
Mined inorganic fertilizers have been used for many centuries, whereas chemically synthesized inorganic fertilizers were only widely developed during the industrial revolution. Increased understanding and use of fertilizers were important parts of the pre-industrial British Agricultural Revolution and the industrial Green Revolution of the 20th century.
Inorganic fertilizer use has also significantly supported global population growth — it has been estimated that almost half the people on the Earth are currently fed as a result of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use.
Fertilizers typically provide, in varying proportions:
The macronutrients are consumed in larger quantities and are present in plant tissue in quantities from 0.15% to 6.0% on a dry matter (0% moisture) basis (DM). Micronutrients are consumed in smaller quantities and are present in plant tissue on the order of parts per million (ppm), ranging from 0.15 to 400 ppm DM, or less than 0.04% DM.
Only three other macronutrients are required by all plants: carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. These nutrients are supplied by water and carbon dioxide.
The nitrogen-rich fertilizer ammonium nitrate is also used as an oxidizing agent in improvised explosive devices, sometimes called fertilizer bombs, leading to sale regulations[citation needed].
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