Abstract: The ‘phosphorus problem’ has recently received strong interest with two distinct strands of importance. The first is that too much phosphorus (P) is entering into waste water, creating a significant economic and ecological problem. Secondly, while agricultural demand for phosphate fertilizer is increasing to maintain crop yields, rock phosphate reserves are rapidly declining. Unravelling the mechanisms by which plants sense, respond to, and acquire phosphate can address both problems, allowing the development of crop plants that are more efficient at acquiring and using limited amounts of phosphate while at the same time improving the potential of plants and other photosynthetic organisms for nutrient recapture and recycling from waste water. In this review, we attempt to synthesize these important but often disparate parts of the debate in a holistic fashion, since solutions to such a complex problem require integrated and multidisciplinary approaches that address both P supply and demand. Rapid progress has been made recently in our understanding of local and systemic signalling mechanisms for phosphate, and of expression and regulation of membrane proteins that take phosphate up from the environment and transport it within the plant. We discuss the current state of understanding of such mechanisms involved in sensing and responding to phosphate stress. We also discuss approaches to improve the P-use efficiency of crop plants and future direction for sustainable use of P, including use of photosynthetic organisms for recapture of P from waste waters.

Abstract: This deliverable focuses on some illustrative results obtained with different grassland- specific, grassland adapted crop and dynamic vegetation models selected out of the first list of models compiled in D-L2.1.1 to simulate biomass and flux data from grassland sites in Europe and peri-Mediterranean regions (D-L2.1.1 and D-L2.1.2). Results from uncalibrated simulations were documented in the D-L2.3 report as a blind exercise. Some model improvements are emphasized in this report due to the higher information level of the model calibrations. The complete set of results will include simulations from uncalibrated and calibrated models. No Label

Abstract: This deliverable lays out the work as done as part of MACSUR CropM on data, with the  focus on improving data management and have shared data curation for future use. The  issue was tackled with help from the MACSUR central hub coordination in the form of Jason  Jargenson from University of Reading. The data management as proposed and  implemented in this deliverable is very much a bottom up process, in which partners in a  meeting in Spring 2013 in Aarhus investigated the best way forward for data management  across activities in CropM.As a follow up to this, the work was mainly divided in three  parts:  1. The  Open  Data  Journal  for  Agricultural  Research,  mainly  focused  on  long  term  data  archival  and  citation  of  data  sets,  as  input  and  outputs  to  the  modelling  work,  as  part  of  MACSUR,  lead  by  Wageningen  UR  2. The  Geonetwork  data  catalog  hosted  at  Aarhus  Universitet,  that  allows  for  operational  access  and  storage  of  data  sets  as  part  of  the  ongoing  work,  also  for  restricted  access  of  the  consortium,  and  as  a  first  step  to  visualization,  lead  by  Aarhus  Universitet.  3. The  work  on  rating  data  sets,  that  provides  a  tool  for  improving  data  set  access  in  an  early  phase  for  connecting  them  to  models,  lead  by  Reading  University.  At the end of the deliverable some next steps are giving for data activities in the context  of AgMIP and beyond. No Label