Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Chair: Dave Mengel, KS Secretary: Mingchu Zhang, AK Member at large: Fabián Fernández, IL Guests: Mike Castellano (Iowa State University), Bob Van Veldhuizen representing Mingchu Zhang (University of Alaska), Ana Wingeyer representing Dan Walters (University of Nebraska) Meeting called to order at 8:30 AM by John Sawyer. He was acting as chair on request of Dave Mengel who was sick and could not attend the meeting. Fabián Fernández compiled the minutes in the absence of the secretary. Business: Agenda was approved by Gyles Randall and second by Carrie Laboski. Minutes of the 2009 meeting were approved by Will Horwath and second by Fabián Fernández. Will Horwath volunteered to be the new member at large for the committee. It was decided that the meeting will be held in the same location on March 2 and 3, 2011. Responsibilities of the officers in the committee were reviewed by John Sawyer: Each position is held for a year. The member at large becomes the secretary in the second year and the chair in the third year. The member at large is the only position that needs to be filled every year. Chair: is in charge of moderating the annual meeting, set the agenda, produce the annual report, and write the renewal proposal when applicable. Secretary: takes minutes, send it to all members for input and modifications, and works with the chair to get the minutes finalized. Member at large: arranges accommodations for the meeting location. Dave Mengel will be in charge of writing the project renewal this summer and fall, along with the Secretary, Mingchu Zhang, and the Member-at-Large, Fabian Fernandez. Will Horwath also volunteered to help with the renewal proposal as it will be based on the AFRI/NIFA proposal the committee intends on submitting. Other members of the committee will also be expected to contribute. Gyles Randall mentioned a concern that the support for travel to this and similar meetings is getting reduced and that that cuts at the universities are reducing the number of faculty. These changes might have a very significant impact on what this and other NC committees look like in the future. State Reports: State reports consisted of summaries by each committee member present on research related to committee activities. Reports were presented by CA, WI, MN, NB, AK, IL, OH, SD, IA. Administrative Advisers report: Sue Blodgett, Administrative Adviser to the Committee, provided the administrative report. She reminded the committee about due dates for the project renewal, and mentioned that the mid-term review was successful and expected that the renewal should go well since this is an active committee. September 15: Deadline to submit a request to write a proposal in NIMSS and upload the Issues and Justification section. i) Each project MUST select an Administrator Advisor (AA) prior to submitting a proposal request. Without an AA, the request will not be approved. The NCRA office no longer can assign AA to projects. (Dr. Blodgett agreed to serve as AA) ii) If we wish to retain the same number designation, we need to send a letter of justification to the NCRA at this time as well. October 15: Deadline to upload the objectives section in NIMSS. November 15: All participants and their AES office should have submitted completed Appendix E forms into NIMSS. December 1: Completed proposal is due in NIMSS in its entirety. Failure to meet this deadline may result in the project not being reviewed and renewed this round. December 15: AA review forms due in NIMSS. Mid-late December: All proposals are sent to NC regional review committees (NCACs) and multistate research committee (MRC) Dr. Blodgett reported on her meeting with Agronomy and Entomology Department Head Meetings and talked about some of the remarks Dr. Ray Knighton from NIFA presented to one of these groups. She encouraged the committee to look at the 5 areas of research NIFA is looking at and include some of that language in the renewal document. Dr. Blodgett mentioned that the future focus of NIFA is on bigger grants multi-disciplinary and multi-institution proposals. She also mentioned that the overhead for grants is the same as in the past. The committee was asked that output statements be written to be more tangible and direct. She mentioned the committee has some very good impacts, but suggested it would be beneficial to translate them into, for example, amount of dollars saved by more efficient use of N, etc. She also suggested including in the renewal proposal that this group is dynamic as it conducts research that is pertinent to changes in technologies (such as new hybrids). Database development Progress report: Carrie Laboski mentioned no activity since last year. John Sawyer mentioned that if we accumulate the data we need to have a use goal for the data, otherwise there might not be interest for people to provide data or set up a database structure. It was generally agreed that one possibility would be to create a database to then write a publication on formulas used to calculate different measures of Nitrogen Use Efficiency. Publication development on residual soil nitrate: Carrie Laboski and Will Horwath reported no activity since last year. Discussion for New Project/proposal: Ana Wingeyer presented the Maize-N model and discussed some of the data that is needed to use the model. After some discussion, the committee decided that it would be beneficial to have development of a database of available data for use with Maize-N as one of the objectives of this committee. Some of the key questions that need to be answered before committee members are likely to participate in this objective are: i) what data exactly do we need to provide; ii). what missing data make the data less useful; and iii). what would be the minimum amount of data or variables needed to make the data set useful. It would be helpful if Ana or Dan Walters could provide a file with a tab including the bare minimum variables needed for the dataset to be useful, and another tab where additional variables that can be useful, can be added. Another important question is what would be the outcome of providing all these data? We need is a clear idea of what the data would be used for and what type of outcome could be expected. Collecting the database for the ISNT with a specific purpose in mind was mentioned as an illustration that when the purpose of collecting a database is clear, people are more excited to contribute information and the possibility of a tangible outcome is more likely. John Sawyer did a follow-up on last years discussion on different NUE calculations. A discussion followed on whether these calculations can be related to any type of physiological response or mechanisms and what do we really mean by NUE use efficiency. It was proposed that a potential use of generating a database of N studies could be to investigate the various NUE equations. Currently there is confusion because of the lack of uniformity in the way different studies use/interpret the various NUE equations. This committee could produce a publication that could potentially become a reference source to address the fore mentioned problems on consistency. The fact that the database would represent a fairly large geography and the publication would be produced by a substantial number of authors could also give relevance to becoming a reference publication. The discussion of the committee then turned to focus on additional objectives and the possibility of securing external funding. A main point of discussion was the fact that with increasing rates of N application the release of native N supply is changed, thus the way N utilization is currently calculated using N uptake from a check plot without fertilizer N as the estimate of soil N supply should be modified. With this in mind, the following were proposed as objectives: 1) To determine the amount of N release from the native supply as induced by increasing N fertilizer rates; 2) To further fine-tune fertilizer rates and enhance NUE through N management to improve profitability and environmental protection; 3) To improve our fundamental understanding of soil carbon and soil nitrogen processes. The committee agreed that the renewal should focus on these objectives and these objectives would serve as the starting point for the pre-proposal to NIFA.

California, Will Horwath: This research is looking at bacterial N biomass and the relative importance of direct N uptake from the organic pool or the indirect route of N uptake after being mineralized to NO3. This research was done using 15-N labeled Leucine (LEU) and Glycine (GLY) combined with wheat residue. The study found that 10% of LEU and 53% of GLY mineralized. Over half of the N taken up was done through the direct route rather than the mineralization route. The fraction of N taken up by the direct route was estimated to be 55 and 62% for the young and old residue, respectively. After 28 days of incubation the proportion of amino acid-N mineralized had increased especially in the soil amended with older residue suggesting that the MIT route became increasingly important. The main point was that for years we have focused on the indirect route, but these data suggest that the direct route should be emphasized. Wisconsin, Carrie Laboski: Research in Wisconsin looked at the Agronomic optimum N rate required for rootworm resistant hybrids vs. near isolines. The results were variable by year, but on average the resistant hybrids were slightly less efficient with N use. They also evaluated the impact of a new nitrification inhibitor product, Instinct (encapsulated nitropyrin). In a wet year the product protected N and reduced loss, but in a dry year there was no difference. Minnesota, Gyles Randall: Results for N rate studies looking at EONR and indigenous soil N supply for corn following corn and corn following soybean were presented. Another study was related to response to preplant vs split N applications for hybrids with and without rootworm trait. The rootworm trait yielded approximately 6 bu/a higher than the hybrid without the rootworm trait. This difference was also observed at the zero N, control plot. All the different N efficiency calculations showed no difference between trait and no-trait. Nebraska, Ana Wingeyer: Results from research on indigenous soil N supply and the nature of the active N fraction were presented. The main conclusions were that the active N fraction accounts for <15% of the total soil N; it is composed of organic and inorganic N; the organic active N fraction does not seem to be a unique SOM pool but a composite pool; The N-rich MHA fraction is a key N supply pool for humification and indigenous N supply (M.I.T); the LF pool is very active but its contribution is limited by the size of this pool; and the recently incorporated N into CaHA fraction represents a readily available N pool for microbial biomass under conditions of intense N immobilization pressure. Alaska, Bob Van Veldhuizen: Bob reported on a project seeking to understand N losses by volatilization. The main finding was that substantial volatilization occurs even when temperatures are near or below freezing. Illinois, Fabián Fernández: Fabián provided an update on a few of the nitrogen related projects pertaining to this committee. Results from UAN with and without instinct were similar to those reported by Carrie Laboski. A short presentation on a shallow anhydrous ammonia applicator from John Deere followed. This was a three-year study conducted in Iowa, Illinois, and Kansas. The analysis of these data is currently ongoing. The discussion concluded looking at grain yield data from check plots and the importance of understanding indigenous N supply to more accurately predict optimum N rates in a given year. Ohio, Warren Dick: Reported on a long term tillage study looking at carbon budget. In this study all inputs and outputs were converted to carbon using data provided by Dr. Lal. Results indicated the no-till continuous corn was carbon neutral or slowly building carbon over time and conventional tillage with corn-soybean had the highest output of carbon (highest global warming potential). Warren presented data from Robert Mullen showing no correlation between N rate and EONR. Also looking at PSNT, the higher the PSNT value the lower the agronomic optimum N rate. Algorithm using remote sensing technologies show promise for N management. South Dakota, Cheryl Reese: Cheryl presented recent studies seeking to improve N recommendations for wheat. One of the outputs from this research was the development of an online N rate calculator for wheat taking into account economics and other factors such as grain quality (protein). Iowa, John Sawyer: Data was presented from the Iowa Corn Nitrogen Rate Calculator database that showed the potential for use of delta yield as a way to determine EONR. That relationship was a quadratic or quadratic-plateau response. Plotting slope B and curvature C from N rate regression models (many quadratic plateau) resulted in a linear relationship, as proposed by Kachanoski (2009). However, using that linear relationship and the mathematical formula from that publication appeard to underestimate EONR. Instead of going through that calculation process, the regression fit of delta yield versus EONR could be used directly. However, there was considerable variation in EONR at a given delta yield, thus limiting use as a predictor of EONR.