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Baker, A., Ceasar, S. A., Palmer, A. J., Paterson, J. B., Qi, W., Muench, S. P., et al. (2015). Replace, reuse, recycle: improving the sustainable use of phosphorus by plants. J. Experim. Bot., 66(12), 3523–3540.
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.
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Baldinger, L., Vaillant, J., Zollitsch, W., & Rinne, M. (2015). Making a decision-support system for dairy farmers usable throughout Europe: the challenge of feed evaluation. Advances in Animal Biosciences, 6(01), 3–5.
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Balkovič, J., van der Velde, M., Schmid, E., Skalský, R., Khabarov, N., Obersteiner, M., et al. (2013). Pan-European crop modelling with EPIC: Implementation, up-scaling and regional crop yield validation. Agricultural Systems, 120, 61–75.
Abstract: Justifiable usage of large-scale crop model simulations requires transparent, comprehensive and spatially extensive evaluations of their performance and associated accuracy. Simulated crop yields of a Pan-European implementation of the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) crop model were satisfactorily evaluated with reported regional yield data from EUROSTAT for four major crops, including winter wheat, rainfed and irrigated maize, spring barley and winter rye. European-wide land use, elevation, soil and daily meteorological gridded data were integrated in GIS and coupled with EPIC. Default EPIC crop and biophysical process parameter values were used with some minor adjustments according to suggestions from scientific literature. The model performance was improved by spatial calculations of crop sowing densities, potential heat units, operation schedules, and nutrient application rates. EPIC performed reasonable in the simulation of regional crop yields, with long-term averages predicted better than inter-annual variability: linear regression R-2 ranged from 0.58 (maize) to 0.91 (spring barley) and relative estimation errors were between +/- 30% for most of the European regions. The modelled and reported crop yields demonstrated similar responses to driving meteorological variables. However, EPIC performed better in dry compared to wet years. A yield sensitivity analysis of crop nutrient and irrigation management factors and cultivar specific characteristics for contrasting regions in Europe revealed a range in model response and attainable yields. We also show that modelled crop yield is strongly dependent on the chosen PET method. The simulated crop yield variability was lower compared to reported crop yields. This assessment should contribute to the availability of harmonised and transparently evaluated agricultural modelling tools in the EU as well as the establishment of modelling benchmarks as a requirement for sound and ongoing policy evaluations in the agricultural and environmental domains. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Banse, M., Brouwer, F., Palatnik, R. R., & Sinabell, F. (2014). The Economics of European Agriculture under Conditions of Climate Change (Editorial). German Journal of Agricultural Economics, 63(3), 131–132.
Abstract: This Special Issue on “The Economics of European Agriculture under Conditions of Climate Change” brings together a selection of papers that contribute to the understanding of recent developments related to agriculture and climate change in four European coun- tries. The focus of the Special Issue is on quantitative modeling and empirical analyses. The papers presented here not only cover the heterogeneity of agriculture in Europe with case studies from the Mediterranean (Italy), central (Austria) and north-western Europe (Ireland and Scotland) but also give insights into the diversity of quantitative modeling approaches in agriculture.
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Barber, H. M., Gooding, M. J., & Semenov, M. A. (2014). Improving modelling of wheat responses to high temperature stress under climate change..
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