This collection reviews current research on understanding nutrient cycles, the ways crops process nutrients, the environmental effects of fertilizer use and how this understanding can be used to optimise nutrient use efficiency (NUE) and reduce fertiliser use. Chapters summarise research on the primary macronutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. They also discuss secondary macronutrients and micronutrients including: calcium, magnesium, sulphur, zinc, boron, manganese and molybdenum. The final two parts of the book review research on fertiliser application. Chapters cover topics such as assessing nutrient availability, decision support systems for optimising crop nutrition, advances in site-specific nutrient management and advances in integrated plant nutrient management. Other chapters discuss enhanced efficiency fertilisers, the use of bio-effectors/bio-stimulants, fertigation techniques and organic amendments.

This collection reviews current research on understanding nutrient cycles, the ways crops process nutrients, the environmental effects of fertilizer use and how this understanding can be used to improve nutrient use efficiency for a more resource-efficient and climate-smart agriculture. Parts 1-3 summarise research on the primary macronutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Chapter review what we know about nutrient cycles, crop nutrient processing, potential environmental effects and ways of optimising nutrient use efficiency (NUE). The fourth section of the book discusses secondary macronutrients and micronutrients including: calcium, magnesium, sulphur, zinc, boron, manganese and molybdenum. The final two parts of the book review research on optimising fertiliser use. Chapters cover topics such as assessing nutrient availability, decision support systems for optimising crop nutrition, advances in site-specific nutrient management and advances in integrated plant nutrient management. Other chapters discuss enhanced efficiency fertilisers, the use of bio-effectors/bio-stimulants, fertigation techniques and the use of organic amendments. With its distinguished editor and international team of expert authors, this will be a standard reference on optimising crop nutrition for the crop science and farming community.

SDG2 links food security, nutrition and a sustainable but climate resilient agriculture. This multi-dimensional goal encompasses several specific targets and indicators, aimed at ending hunger, improving nutrition and achieving food security through sustainable and resilient agriculture and income increase.

The cropping system is one of the important components of sustainable agriculture, since it provides more efficient nutrient cycling. As such, balanced fertilization must be based on the concept of sustainable crop production. Feeding the rapidly growing world population using environmentally sustainable production systems is a major challenge, especially in developing countries. A number of studies have highlighted the fact that degradation of the world's cultivated soils is largely responsible for low and plateauing yields. Soil is lost rapidly but only formed over millennia, and this represents the greatest global threat to nutrient dynamics in agriculture. This means that nutrient management is essential to provide food and nutritional security for current and future generations. Nutrient dynamics and soil sustainability imply the maintenance of the desired ecological balance, the enhancement and preservation of soil functions, and the protection of biodiversity above and below ground. Understanding the role of nutrient management as a tool for soil sustainability and nutritional security requires a holistic approach to a wide range of soil parameters (biological, physical, and chemical) to assess the soil functions and nutrient dynamics of a crop management system within the desired timescale. Further, best nutrient management approaches are important to advance soil sustainability and food and nutritional security without compromising the soil quality and productive potential. Sustainable management practices must allow environmentally and economically sustainable yields and restore soil health and sustainability. This book presents soil management approaches that can provide a wide range of benefits, including improved fertility, with a focus on the importance of nutrient dynamics. Discussing the broad impacts of nutrients cycling on the sustainability of soil and the cropping systems that it supports, it also addresses nutrient application to allow environmentally and economically sustainable agroecosystems that restore soil health. Arguing that balanced fertilization must be based on the concept of INM for a cropping system rather than a crop, it provides a roadmap to nutrient management for sustainability. This richly illustrated book features tables, figures and photographs and includes extensive up-to-date references, making it a valuable resource for policymakers and researchers, as well as undergraduate and graduate students of Soil Science, Agronomy, Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

This publication offers a systemic analysis of sustainability in the food system, taking as its framework the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations. Targeted chapters from experts in the field cover main challenges in the food system and propose methods for achieving long term sustainability. Authors focus on how sustainability can be achieved along the whole food chain and in different contexts. Timely issues such as food security, climate change and migration and sustainable agriculture are discussed in depth. The volume is unique in its multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach. Chapter authors come from a variety of backgrounds, and authors include academic professors, members of CSO and other international organizations, and policy makers. This plurality allows for a nuanced analysis of sustainability goals and practices from a variety of perspectives, making the book useful to a wide range of readers working in different areas related to sustainability and food production. The book is targeted towards the academic community and practitioners in the policy, international cooperation, nutrition, geography, and social sciences fields. Professors teaching in nutrition, food technology, food sociology, geography, global economics, food systems, agriculture and agronomy, and political science and international cooperation may find this to be a useful supplemental text in their courses.

The book offers a rich toolkit of relevant, adoptable ecosystem-based practices that can help the world's 500 million smallholder farm families achieve higher productivity, profitability and resource-use efficiency while enhancing natural capital.

The classical long-term trial at Hanninghof was established in 1958 on loamy sand soil in Duelmen, Germany to study the long-term effects of different nutrient management strategies. The impact of balanced mineral fertilizer application and integrating farmyard manure (FYM) with mineral fertilizer on indicators of sustainable crop production are evaluated in comparison to unbalanced nutrition. Crop rotation since 1958 was potato, followed by winter rye and oat. After 2008, the rotation was silage maize, winter rye, and potato to adjust the trial to current farm practice, but the treatments remained the same: a control plot without fertilizer; FYM alone; and mineral P + K, N, N + P, N + K, N + P + K, and N + P + K + Mg fertilizers with and without FYM. The effect of each treatment on crop yield, revenue, sustainable yield index, water and nutrient use efficiencies, soil nutrient and carbon contents, and soil pH are presented. Evaluation of the 62 years data shows that unbalanced nutrition caused by omitting nutrients and application of only FYM as organic nutrition reduced crop yield and revenue, led to inefficient use of resources and nutrients, and a depletion of soil fertility with negative implications on sustainability. Application of mineral fertilizer N + P + K + Mg as the balanced nutrition and supplementing FYM with mineral fertilizer as the integrated nutrition had social, economic and environmental benefits indicating sustainable crop production.