Use of a coupled soil-root-leaf model to optimise phosphate fertiliser use efficiency in barley

Aims: Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient necessary for maintaining crop growth, however, it’s often used inefficiently within agroecosystems, driving industry to find new ways to deliver P to crops sustainably. We aim to combine traditional soil and crop measurements with climate-driven mathematical models, to give insight into optimising the timing and placement of fertiliser applications. Methods: The whole plant crop model combines an above-ground leaf model with an existing spatially explicit below-ground root-soil model to estimate plant P uptake and above ground dry mass. We let P-dependent photosynthesis estimate carbon (C) mass, which in conjunction with temperature sets the root-growth-rate. Results: The addition of the leaf model achieved a better estimate of two sets of barley field trial data for plant P uptake, compared with just the root-soil model alone. Furthermore, discrete fertiliser placement increases plant P uptake by up to 10 % in comparison to incorporating fertiliser. Conclusions: By capturing essential plant processes we are able to accurately simulate P and C use and water and P movement during a cropping season. The powerful combination of mechanistic modelling and experimental data allows physiological processes to be quantified accurately and useful agricultural predictions for site specific locations to be made.