N-CIRCLE: Virtual Joint Centre for Closed-Loop Cycling of Nitrogen in Chinese Agriculture

中国农业生产力不断提高，发展迅速，但过度施氮导致的氮素利用效率低下，日益威胁到农业的可持续性（Duan et al., 2014）。大量分散的小型农场、知识或设备不足以及农艺推广服务薄弱加剧了这种情况（Fan et al., 2012）。相比之下，英国的农业在过去20年里一直保持着稳定的生产，但已经为污染控制建立了强大的知识基础和基础设施。关于农业氮素使用的中英VJC将为两国提供现实的中短期解决方案：通过近闭环氮素循环支持提高作物生产力（Shock & Shock, 2012）。在可预见的未来，这将促进中国农村地区的经济发展和福利。关键的挑战是整合和发展不同技术之间的协同作用。“氮循环”VJC将以清晰的愿景，创建一个充满活力和持久的多学科中心，吸引、整合和利用来自英国和中国的相关技能和专业知识，为中国农业氮循环提供基础设施。特别是，环境、生物和遗传科学家将与农艺推广专家联合起来，组成团队，分享和开发一种多尺度方法，通过“凉爽农场工具”（CFT）实施，用于商业和科学目的。CFT已经是双语的（英语和普通话），因此将用于确定干预的关键点，引发有针对性的创新，解释和促进它们的采用，并评估它们的影响。N-Circle将跨越物理尺度，跨越雄心尺度，跨越经验尺度，使其变革议程是动态的，持续的和持久的。它的每一项研究和推广活动都将涉及双边交流和培训，以建立技术专长，最大限度地发挥协同作用，建立研究能力，并激励未来的科学领袖。一项密集的外展计划将与各地的区域农业社区接触，通过在农业和消费者中认识和采用n圈概念和哲学来实现快速变革。如果能够将分子、化学、微生物、农艺和工程技术等多种创新的潜在力量整合并扩大到田间、农场和区域尺度上经济上可行的系统中，那么令人兴奋的技术协同效应是可行的。N- circle将(i)在英国和中国领先的研究实验室刺激有针对性的创新，（ii）在CFT和其他验证经济和环境影响的模型的支持下，将它们整合到“案例研究”农场和典型流域中，并与当地团队一起促进工业和科学之间的双向知识交流（KE），以及（iii）将建立质量标志，以认可和认可中国严格的氮循环实践。“N圈”VJC的最终结果将是：(i)一个广泛的信念，即中国农业的未来集约化可以基于可持续的氮循环，氮投入和氮排放都最小化，以及（ii）实现这一信念的议程。一些直接的技术机遇使中国在更紧密的氮素循环方面取得进展成为一个合适的时机，包括(i)对控制土壤微生物学的理解、抑制剂和机械的可用性，（ii）对以豆类为基础的轮作重新产生兴趣，以及内生重氮营养物作为非豆类接种剂的商业可用性，（iii）增强的计算能力，以总结有关作物动态、遗传学和环境排放的密集数据集。（四）由数据处理革命支持的全球定位基础设施，使空间实验成为可能；（五）基因转化技术，使收获的作物蛋白质能够密切符合最终用户的要求。

China's agriculture is increasing its productivity and developing rapidly, but low efficiency of N use through overfertilization with N, increasingly threatens its sustainability (Duan et al., 2014). This situation is exacerbated by a vast number of small decentralized farms, inadequate knowledge or equipment, and a weak agronomic extension service (Fan et al., 2012). Agriculture in the UK, by contrast has had static production for twenty years but has built a strong knowledge-base and infrastructure for pollution control. A China-UK VJC on agricultural N use will deliver realistic short-to-medium term solutions for both countries: intensified crop productivity supported by near-closed-loop N cycling (Shock & Shock, 2012). This will advance the economic development and welfare of China's rural regions into the foreseeable future.The key challenge is to integrate and develop synergies between disparate technologies. The 'N-Circle' VJC will create a dynamic and lasting multi-disciplinary hub, with a clear vision, to attract, integrate and harness the relevant skills and expertise from the UK and China, to create infrastructure to deliver tight agricultural N cycling in China. In particular, environmental, biological and genetic scientists will combine with specialists in agronomic extension to form teams that share and develop a multi-scale approach, implemented through the Cool Farm Tool (CFT) for both commercial and scientific purposes. The CFT is already bi-lingual (English and Mandarin), so will be used to identify crucial points for intervention, to elicit targeted innovations, to explain and promote their adoption, and to assess their impacts. N-Circle will work across physical scales, across scales of ambition, and across scales of experience, so that its agenda for change is dynamic, ongoing and lasting. Each of its research and extension activities will involve bilateral exchanges and training to build technical expertise, to maximise synergies, build research capacity and enthuse the science leaders of the future. An intensive outreach programme will engage with regional agricultural communities throughout, to achieve rapid change through recognition and adoption of the N-Circle concepts and philosophy within agriculture and among consumers. Exciting technological synergies are feasible if the potential power of multiple innovations in molecular, chemical, micro-biological, agronomic and engineering technologies can be integrated and up-scaled into economically viable systems at field, farm and regional scales. N-Circle will (i) stimulate targeted innovations at leading UK and Chinese research laboratories, (ii) integrate them on 'case study' farms and in typical catchments, supported by the CFT and other models that validate economic and environmental impacts, and local teams to facilitate two-way knowledge exchange (KE) between industry and science, and (iii) will establish a quality mark to recognise and accredit tight N cycling practices in China. The ultimate outcomes of the 'N-Circle' VJC will be (i) a widespread belief that future intensification of Chinese agriculture can be based on sustainable N cycling, with N inputs and N emissions both minimised, and (ii) an agenda to realise that belief.Several immediate technological opportunities make this an apt time for progress in tighter N cycling in China, including (i) availability of understanding, inhibitors and machinery to manipulate soil microbiology, (ii) renewed interest in legume-based rotations, and commercial availability of endophytic diazotrophs as non-legume inoculants, (iii) enhanced computing power to summarise intensive datasets on crop dynamics, as well as genetics and environmental emissions, (iv) global positioning infrastructure supported by a data processing revolution that enables spatial experimentation, (v) genetic transformation technology that enables harvested crop proteins to be tailored closely to end-user requirements.