SYDNEY, July 26 (Xinhua) -- A group of Australian researchers have found a way to help protect Australia's Great Barrier Reef while maintaining farming yields by developing a new fertiliser to help stem the flow of nitrogen pollution.
Approximately 80,000 tonnes of inorganic nitrogen enters the reef system each year mainly due to farm run-off from excessive use of nitrogen-based fertilisers, increasing the risk of algal blooms which are associated with deadly Crown of Thorns starfish outbreaks.
Researchers from James Cook University have developed a new nitrification inhibitor, a chemical that slows the conversion of nitrogen to easily lost forms, allowing enough time for vegetation to take up the nutrient, finding just half of the usual amounts of fertiliser were needed to achieve the same yields.
"This is good news for farmers and for the Great Barrier Reef," James Cook University soil expert Dr Paul Nelson said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Ensuring plants have sufficient nitrogen is important for profitable farming, but it must be balanced with the potential for losses to the environment.
"The enhanced-efficiency fertilizer we tested on a North Queensland dairy farm provides a means to improve this balance on dairy farms."
Although dairy pastures are a relatively minor land use in the tropics, the amount of nitrogen-based fertilizers are so large that any reduction in pollutants could be significant.
Critically, the study found most of the excess nitrogen was lost via leaching through the soil, rather than surface run-off, Nelson said.
"So, it's worth determining optimum rates of this new fertilizer as a way of reducing leaching of nitrogen while maintaining profitability," Nelson said.
