PFI-RP: Development of a new fertilizer to improve the harvest yields of corn and soybeans

这个PFI项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是通过增加商业农场的产量和增加依赖农业作物的相关行业的生产来增加美国的经济竞争力。该项目将产生一种新的肥料，可用于将大豆和玉米的收成产量提高至少10%，可能高达25%。每英亩产量的增加将使50多万农民能够从他们的土地上种植和销售更多的粮食，并将无利可图的年份变成有利可图的年份。这将给农村社区带来更多的钱，并增加美国农民S的经济竞争力。农业增产影响的不仅仅是农民，它还影响到依赖粮食生产的价值9920亿美元的行业。这项提案以玉米和大豆为目标，因为它们在美国种植面积约为1.8亿英亩(比德克萨斯州的面积还大)，每年产生超过920亿美元的收入。最后，该项目将通过增加已经用于农业的土地上种植的粮食数量来提高美国的食品安全。拟建项目是玉米、大豆增产新型肥料的优化示范。这种新型肥料将由天然化学品和已用于农业的生物兼容、可生物降解的聚合物制成。建议的新型肥料的配方将每年进行优化和试验，方法是在商业田种植大豆和玉米，并调查不同肥料装载量对产量的影响。工业合作伙伴将使用商业农业设备传播拟议的化肥，并在与农民相同的条件下种植玉米和大豆。这些研究旨在评估拟议的化肥是否会增加收成产量，并提供必要的数据，这些数据将提供给爱荷华州农业部，以获得商业销售化肥的许可。在这笔赠款完成后，建议的肥料将被优化用于玉米和大豆，并有望证明它们的收成产量增加了10%至25%。这项奖励反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this PFI project will be increasing the economic competitiveness of the U.S. by increasing the output from commercial farms and increasing the production of related industries that rely on agricultural crops. This project will result in a new fertilizer that can be used to increase the harvest yields of soybeans and corn by at least 10% and possibly up to 25%. An increase in yields per acre will allow over 500,000 farmers to grow and sell more food from their land and to turn unprofitable years into profitable ones. This will bring more money into rural communities and increase the economic competitiveness of America?s farmer. Increasing agricultural production affects more than farmers, it also affects industries worth $992B that rely on food production. This proposal targets corn and soybeans because they are grown on approximately 180M acres in the U.S. (this is larger than the size of Texas) and generate over $92B in revenue each year. Finally, this project will increase the food safety of the U.S. by increasing the amount of food grown on land already dedicated to farming. The proposed project is the optimization and demonstration of a new fertilizer to increase the harvest yields of corn and soybeans. This novel fertilizer will be fabricated from natural chemicals and biocompatible, biodegradable polymers already used in agriculture. The formulation of the proposed novel fertilizer will be optimized and tested each year by growing crops of soybeans and corn in commercial fields and investigating the effect on yield of different loadings of fertilizer. The industrial partner will spread the proposed fertilizer using commercial farming equipment and grow corn and soybean plants under identical conditions as farmers. These studies are designed to assess whether the proposed fertilizer will increase the harvest yields and provide necessary data that will be provided to the Iowa Department of Agriculture to gain permission to sell the fertilizer commercially. At the completion of this grant the proposed fertilizer will be optimized for corn and soybeans and, hopefully, demonstrated to increase their harvest yields by 10 to 25%.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.