By Jim Millar
A new report says the livestock sector’s use of nitrogen offers great potential to promote better environmental stewardship and sustainable agricultural practices, enhancing global food security.
The report by the Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL) has identified that the livestock sector can use nitrogen more effectively through an appreciation of the nitrogen cycle and consideration to monitoring and management of nitrogen resources.
Nitrogen stimulates plant growth which underpins the productivity of modern agriculture. Nitrogen can have positive or negative impacts depending on its form and where that occurs in the agricultural system.
Nitrate can be used as a crop fertiliser, but must be carefully monitored to ensure excess nitrogen is not released from soil into waterways.
Nitrogen also may be lost from the cycle as a greenhouse gas, called nitrous oxide or an air pollutant such as ammonia which is normally released from livestock manure.
Ruminant livestock, such as cattle and sheep, play a key role in producing high-quality protein for human nutrition. It is essential for this as ruminants can capture nitrogen for protein synthesis using bacteria which colonise their gut.
With nitrogen being a fundamental component of agricultural systems, the Why Nitrogen Matters in Livestock Production Report seeks to understand how the industry can better utilise nitrogen and encourage effective nitrogen cycling.
Dr Mark Young, innovation specialist at CIEL, said the report has identified that the livestock sector can use nitrogen more effectively through an appreciation of the nitrogen cycle and consideration to monitoring and management of nitrogen resources.
“Nitrogen is essential for agriculture. It’s the key element needed for protein production, captured by microbes living in soil, in the roots of plants and colonising the gut of sheep and cattle.
“However, while some agricultural practices cause excessive loss of nitrogen to the atmosphere and waterways, others can capture nitrogen.
“Losses from the nitrogen cycle cannot be eliminated, so the livestock sector needs to exploit the opportunity to minimise losses and hold more nitrogen in the system.
“This will make farming both more efficient and reduce losses of nitrogen as nitrous oxide (a greenhouse gas), ammonia emissions, and nitrate through leaching or run-off.”
The report examines the natural nitrogen cycle and explains how farming practices shape the nitrogen cycle and the opportunities to improve nitrogen use.
Nitrogen is cycled through the air, soil, water and living organisms. Seventy-eight percent of air is made up of nitrogen gas, but plants and animals are unable to absorb nitrogen in this form.
The cycle is important because it allows nitrogen gas to be converted into compounds which can be used by plants and animals in protein production.
The full report is available on the CIEL website.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here