In Germany, German-Chinese Research Training Groups at the University of Hohenheim and the China Agricultural University in Beijing are looking for solutions for sustainable phosphorus use using the example of maize cultivation systems. If it is not possible to use the resource phosphorus more sustainably, mankind is heading for a serious crisis: phosphorus is irreplaceable […]
In Illinois, a new study from University of Illinois examines the best way to recover phosphorus as a co-product, which can then potentially be used as fertilizer for corn and soybean production. The researchers were able to recover 80% to 90% of the phosphorus through a simple process of increasing the alkalinity of thin stillage […]
In Missouri, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered a way to reduce the use of fertilizer made from rock phosphorus and still see improvements in the growth of food crops by using zinc oxide nanoparticles. This is the first study to show how to mobilize native phosphorus in the soil using zinc […]
Forget water or oil, we’ll run out of phosphorus first, say some. Will that spell “doom” for biofuels as usual? The world’s oil supply, by some calculations, will begin to run out at the end of this century – for some countries, its long gone, never there, or distress is just right around the corner. […]
In Washington, NASA announced that they have discovered a new microbe in California’s Mono Lake, that can use arsenic as a fundamental building block in its DNA. While it has been known that microbes can survive in high arsenic environments, this is the first known case of a microbe that uses arsenic to replace phosphorus […]
