The recent intensification of agriculture, and the prospects of future intensification, will have major detrimental impacts on the nonagricultural terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of the world. The doubling of agricultural food production during the past 35 years was associated with a 6.87-fold increase in nitrogen fertilization, a 3.48-fold increase in phosphorus fertilization, a 1.68-fold i...

Agricultural phosphorus (P) use is intricately linked to food security and water quality. Globalization of agricultural systems and changing diets clearly alter these relationships, yet their specific influence on non-renewable P reserves is less certain. We assessed P fertilizer used for production of food crops, livestock and biofuels in the US agricultural system, explicitly comparing the do...

Fertilization, especially with nitrogen (N), increases aboveground primary productivity (APP), but reduces plant species richness at some level. Silicon (Si) fertilization alone, or with addition of N or phosphorus (P), has multiple direct and indirect beneficial effects on plant growth and development, both for individuals and the whole community. This study aimed to examine the effects of Si,...

The effect of increasing phosphorus (P) intake on P utilization was investigated in balance experiments using 12 Saanen goats, 4 to 5 mo of age and weighing 20 to 30 kg. The goats were given similar diets with various concentrations of P, and 32P was injected to trace the movement of P in the body. A P metabolism model with four pools was developed to compute P exchanges in the system. The resu...

Average annual carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus budgets were constructed for Moreton Bay. Primary production was the dominant source of carbon (by two orders of magnitude), N fixation was the dominant source of nitrogen, and point sources were the dominant source of phosphorus to the bay. About 41% of the nitrogen and 70% of the phosphorus entering Moreton Bay was exported to the ocean, and abo...

Soil health practices can improve soil conditions and provide ecosystem services, but increased risk of phosphorus (P) loss be an unintended consequence. We investigated conservation tillage cover crops effects on P stratification, accumulation at depth, aggregation for sandy Coastal Plain soils from the Mid-Atlantic United States cores 10 agricultural fields with 0–15 years or cropping were an...

Phosphorus (P) surplus on dairy farms, especially confined operations, contributes to P buildup in soils with increased potential for P loss to waters. One approach to reduce P surplus and improve water quality is to optimize P feeding and improve P balance on farms. Here we report how varying P concentrations in lactating cow diets affects the amount as well as the chemical forms and fraction ...

This study evaluated regression of total P output against dietary P intake to simultaneously estimate endogenous P loss and true P utilization in broiler chicks. Soybean meal (SBM) served as the model ingredient, and a comparison was made between conventional and low-phytate SBM varieties. These feedstuffs were chosen to minimize nutritive differences to dietary phytate content. Low-phytate SBM...

Because land-applied organic amendments (manures and biosolids) have widely differing susceptibilities to phosphorus (P) solubilization by water, total P (TP) content is an unreliable indicator of their potential to impact water quality. While P can be transported by erosion of Penriched soil particles, much research has addressed P loss to surface runoff and subsurface drainage in the form of ...