Nitrogen Losses: Meta-analyses on Fertilizer Management- Results and Recommendations.

Project Summary

Growing population and consumer demand require that agriculture continue to increase productivity while managing environmental impacts. Efficient farm production and environmental management needs a well-informed and scientifically-based strategy. To do this, the ever- increasing volume of data from agricultural field research must be summarized, assessed, and interpreted. Meta-analysis of experimental data can be used to find overall or widespread benefits of management practices that may be difficult to fully understand with individual research projects, most of which are limited to particular climatic and soil conditions. Policy makers and producers would like to see broader application of practices that can have water or air quality benefits while maintaining or enhancing production. However, accurate scientific information is needed to know how to do this best, where it will work, and how it can be cost- effective.

This project will summarize the results of all five 4R Research Fund supported meta-analysis projects, and detail the databases generated, as well as the potential for linkages between them or with other databases. This summary will allow for a discussion on the implications of 4R nutrient management that go beyond that possible in single research papers or even in the individual meta-analysis projects.