Adaptation of Chinese and German maize-based food-feed-energy systems to limited phosphate resources—a new Sino-German international research training group

Abstract

Phosphate is supplied to agriculture by mining and fertilizer production, followed by different steps of phosphate utilization, including primary production, feed and food consumption, and conversion of biomass, with accumulation in soils, but little recycling and severe environmental losses. Phosphate is a limited essential nutrient, however, with very uneven distribution worldwide. Closing the cycle and reducing primary phosphate consumption are fundamental future challenges. Maize has a relatively high phosphate requirement. China and Germany together cover the whole range of maize production systems. The new Sino-German international research training group “Adaptation of Chinese and German maize-based food-feed-energy systems to limited phosphate resources” (AMAIZE-P) was initiated in 2018 as a joint venture of the China Agricultural University (Beijing, China) and the University of Hohenheim (Stuttgart, Germany). The interdisciplinary and complementary research is driven by the hypothesis that under phosphate limited conditions, high productivity and high phosphate use efficiency can be achieved simultaneously by adapting phosphate cycling and availability (sources) to the multipurpose phosphate demands (sinks) in maize-based food-feed-energy systems. The educational program for doctoral researchers in China and Germany includes joint block seminars, thematic field trips, case studies, methodological courses, doctoral researchers’ conferences, intercultural training sessions and personal training.

Keywords

international research training group / limited resources / maize / phosphate

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – 328017493/GRK 2366 (International Research Training Group “Adaptation of maize-based food-feed-energy systems to limited phosphate resources”) and by the China Agricultural University. We thank all principle investigators of the GRK 2366 for their valuable contributions. We thank the reviewers and in particular Ian Riley for their helpful remarks.Compliance with ethics guidelinesƒTorsten Müller and Fusuo Zhang declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.ƒAll applicable institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

ƒTorsten Müller and Fusuo Zhang declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.ƒAll applicable institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2019. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)