About

Agrosystems in industrialised countries are facing increasing food demand while having to reduce external inputs and minimise negative environmental impact. The widespread use of synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilisers promotes the productivity and profit in agricultural plant production. However, due to the low nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of crop plants, it entails losses from the plant-soil system via NO₃^- leaching and/or N gas emissions leading to soil, water and atmosphere pollution.

While chemical inhibition of nitrification has emerged as a tool to limit nitrate losses, several plant species display nitrification inhibiting activities, mostly through release of organic compounds present in their root exudates named Biological Nitrification Inhibitors (BNIs).

The main objective of the CATCH-BNI project is to design innovative approaches enabling the slow and controlled conversion of ammonium into nitrate in soils for optimal nutrition of target crops:

• Identifying catch crop plant species and/or cultivars with BNI activities in their root exudates and/or root and shoot tissues;
• Understanding how efficiently the N cycle is impacted by the use of BNI-producing catch crops and how the target crops perform (yield and NUE);
• Determining the best options and modalities to stabilise organic fertilisers with BNI plant material;
• Validating in real-field conditions the proposed innovations.