The hub has attracted $11.4 million in funding over five years and will engage private industry in the quest to develop fertilisers that work better and don’t add to waterway pollution or greenhouse gases.
Established within the School of Agriculture and Food at the University’s Parkville campus, the hub aims to develop a new class of more sustainable ‘smart fertilisers’ to improve nitrogen efficiency, while minimising the environmental impact of productive agriculture.
The university will use paddocks at its Dookie campus for trials.
To improve fertiliser efficiency, hub researchers will apply plant and soil science, chemistry and chemical engineering to develop new biochemical inhibitors and ‘smart fertilisers’ that respond to rhizosphere signals to minimise nitrogen losses.
These innovations aim to increase the efficiency of nitrogen use by up to 20 per cent, making a significant contribution to agriculture and the environment.
The hub’s mission also includes developing evidence-based estimates of environmental and health costs of nitrogen losses and the social benefits of new fertilisers to inform government policy, industry and the community.
Professor Deli Chen is the hub director and leader of the Soils and the Environment Research Group at the University of Melbourne.
He said achieving the hub’s mission would be transformative for agriculture in Australia and around the world, with enormous benefits to both farm profitability and environmental sustainability.
“This will also help the Australian food and agribusiness sector grow to its 2030 target value of $100 billion, while delivering new technology, substantial cost savings, improved productivity, increased profitability and decreased environmental impacts,” Prof Chen said.
“If we can develop a more efficient fertiliser there will be less impact on the environment and less cost to the farmer.”
Prof Chen said the Chinese Government had spent trillions of dollars cleaning up the environment, impacted by the past use of fertilisers.
“Prevention is 100 times better and more efficient than cleaning up afterwards.”
The hub will provide technology and knowledge of significant value to the Australian agricultural and agribusiness sector, which is worth $67 billion annually and employs about 552,000 people.
“The ultimate goal is the creation of feedback responses within the outer shell of smart fertilisers that will trigger nitrogen release and inhibit microbial processes that induce nitrogen losses by drawing from the knowledge and capability of partners from across the entire value chain, from product design through to validation and adoption,” Prof Chen said.
The hub will be based in the Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Melbourne, and includes researchers from the Faculty of Science, the Melbourne School of Engineering and La Trobe University. Partners include fertiliser manufacturer Incitec Pivot Fertilisers and agribusiness company Elders Rural Services Australia.
Incitec Pivot president Stephan Titze said the hub’s aim was to better understand the soil microbiome in Australia and create smart fertilisers to make highly effective and more sustainable plant nutrition products. This will help farmers improve both productivity and soil health at the same time.
Elders will evaluate the commercial application and economic and environmental benefits to farmers that result from the implementation of these new fertiliser technologies.
The ARC Research Hub for Smart Fertilisers seeks to:
- Develop a new class of fertilisers using innovative engineered coatings to regulate release of nitrogen for a range of intensive agricultural systems.
- Develop new urease and nitrification inhibitors and a new dual action urease-nitrification inhibitor.
- Gain new insights into how the root biome integrates signals from plants and soil to optimise nutrient capture and use and incorporate the signalling molecules into fertiliser coatings to improve the resistance of a crop to drought, pathogens and diseases.
- Maximise sector-wide value from new knowledge and technologies through the development of engagement and adoption strategies and the measurement of net value-add and co-benefits.
- Measure, validate and demonstrate the agronomic, environmental and social impacts of these new fertiliser products.
The hub’s $11.45 million funding includes $4.95 million from the ARC, $3.8 million from Incitec Pivot Foundation, $2 million from the University of Melbourne, $100,000 from La Trobe University and $500,000 from Elders Rural Services Australia.
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