TY - JOUR
T1 - Quantifying the Limitation to World Cereal Production Due To Soil Phosphorus Status
AU - Kvakić, Marko
AU - Pellerin, Sylvain
AU - Ciais, Philippe
AU - Achat, David L.
AU - Augusto, Laurent
AU - Denoroy, Pascal
AU - Gerber, James S.
AU - Goll, Daniel
AU - Mollier, Alain
AU - Mueller, Nathaniel D.
AU - Wang, Xuhui
AU - Ringeval, Bruno
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2018/1
Y1 - 2018/1
N2 - Phosphorus (P) is an essential element for plant growth. Low P availability in soils is likely to limit crop yields in many parts of the world, but this effect has never been quantified at the global scale by process-based models. Here we attempt to estimate P limitation in three major cereals worldwide for the year 2000 by combining information on soil P distribution in croplands and a generic crop model, while accounting for the nature of soil-plant P transport. As a global average, the diffusion-limited soil P supply meets the crop's P demand corresponding to the climatic yield potential, due to the legacy soil P in highly fertilized areas. However, when focusing on the spatial distribution of P supply versus demand, we found strong limitation in regions like North and South America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. Averaged over grid cells where P supply is lower than demand, the global yield gap due to soil P is estimated at 22, 55, and 26% in winter wheat, maize, and rice. Assuming that a fraction (20%) of the annual P applied in fertilizers is directly available to the plant, the global P yield gap lowers by only 5–10%, underlying the importance of the existing soil P supply in sustaining crop yields. The study offers a base for exploring P limitation in crops worldwide but with certain limitations remaining. These could be better accounted for by describing the agricultural P cycle with a fully coupled and mechanistic soil-crop model.
AB - Phosphorus (P) is an essential element for plant growth. Low P availability in soils is likely to limit crop yields in many parts of the world, but this effect has never been quantified at the global scale by process-based models. Here we attempt to estimate P limitation in three major cereals worldwide for the year 2000 by combining information on soil P distribution in croplands and a generic crop model, while accounting for the nature of soil-plant P transport. As a global average, the diffusion-limited soil P supply meets the crop's P demand corresponding to the climatic yield potential, due to the legacy soil P in highly fertilized areas. However, when focusing on the spatial distribution of P supply versus demand, we found strong limitation in regions like North and South America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. Averaged over grid cells where P supply is lower than demand, the global yield gap due to soil P is estimated at 22, 55, and 26% in winter wheat, maize, and rice. Assuming that a fraction (20%) of the annual P applied in fertilizers is directly available to the plant, the global P yield gap lowers by only 5–10%, underlying the importance of the existing soil P supply in sustaining crop yields. The study offers a base for exploring P limitation in crops worldwide but with certain limitations remaining. These could be better accounted for by describing the agricultural P cycle with a fully coupled and mechanistic soil-crop model.
KW - cropland
KW - diffusion
KW - global
KW - nutrient
KW - phosphorus
KW - yield gap
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U2 - 10.1002/2017GB005754
DO - 10.1002/2017GB005754
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85041024264
SN - 0886-6236
VL - 32
SP - 143
EP - 157
JO - Global Biogeochemical Cycles
JF - Global Biogeochemical Cycles
IS - 1
ER -