Preventing nitrogen loss and environmental damage

Nitrogen is a key nutrient used for New Zealand’s pasture growth – most commonly applied as urea – but it can be lost via ammonia volatilisation followed by nitrate leaching due to hydrolysis of urea in the soil. This results in reduced availability to crops and the production of Nitrous Oxide – a greenhouse gas which is 300 times more potent than CO₂ and could also affect the ozone layer.

Project: Improving plant nitrogen use efficiency by bioinoculants
Researchers: Dr Hossein Alizadeh, Professor John Hampton, Dr Wadia Kandula, Distinguished Professor Alison Stewart (Marrone Bio Innovations Inc, USA), Dr David Leung (University of Canterbury)
Funder: AGMARDT through a Postdoctoral fellowship awarded to Dr Alizadeh