This week, the
4R Nutrient Stewardship Research Fund announced the release of requests for
proposals (RFP) to solicit literature reviews and syntheses on nutrient
stewardship on a national, regional, or cropping system basis, and to solicit field
research and demonstration projects.
The 4R Research Fund was established
by the fertilizer industry to help establish sustainability indicators and
environmental impact data for implementation of 4R nutrient stewardship across
North America. It provides needed resource support with a focus on measuring
and documenting the economic, social and environmental impacts of 4R nutrient
stewardship. This effort will help expand the 4Rs as a viable strategy embraced
by other important stakeholders to address cropping system productivity and
concerns for nutrient losses into the environment. The fund drew its initial
support from members of the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI), the
Canadian Fertilizer Institute (CFI) and The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) and now
receives support from a growing list of agribusiness companies and stakeholder
organizations.
Proposals are currently being accepted
for the following areas:
Meta-Analyses
on the Impacts of 4R Nutrient Stewardship (Due Dec. 15, 2013)
The objective of
this RFP is to solicit literature reviews and syntheses on topics related to 4R
Nutrient Stewardship on a national, regional, or cropping system basis
utilizing meta‐analyses with stepwise regression, ANOVA, causal
analysis, or other statistical methods. The intent of the projects
developed from these proposals is to utilize previous research to establish the
impacts of 4R Nutrient Stewardship efforts. This will avoid needless
duplication of previous research and inform industry, academia, and agencies of
knowledge gaps that need to be addressed with future research.
Research
and Demonstrations on Impacts of 4R Nutrient Stewardship (Due Jan. 31, 2014
The objective of
this RFP is to solicit proposals for field research and demonstration projects
evaluating the economic, social, and environmental impacts of 4R Nutrient
Stewardship. Projects must address at least one of the 4Rs in addition to rate
(preferably all four) for optimal agronomic management and impact on local
environmental challenges such as water body nitrate levels or P loads and
eutrophication. Impact indicators measured should be scalable and include
system productivity and environmental effects such as those listed in the
projects requested section of this RFP. Recognition of system and site
interactions on the effectiveness of specific 4R practices will be important,
including interactions among cultural practices such as rotation, genetics,
tillage, nutrient-nutrient interactions, cover crops, etc.
More information on the proposals
can be found at www.nutrientstewardship.com/funding.