Two University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers have received nearly $1.6 million to test how enhanced-efficiency fertilizers perform under real Midwestern growing conditions. Andrew Margenot and John Jones, faculty members in the Department of Crop Sciences and members of the Illinois Nutrient Stewardship Alliance, will lead complementary projects on nitrogen and phosphorus management.

The awards form part of a $9.3 million investment by the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research's Efficient Fertilizer Consortium, spread across 12 projects evaluating enhanced-efficiency fertilizers and related management practices in varied soils, cropping systems and climates.

"Growers need robust, science-backed guidance for practical solutions that improve nutrient use efficiency in real-world conditions that reflect their own farming practices," said Sarah Lyons, FFAR scientific program manager. "These investments support actionable research that can help farmers make better and more profitable management decisions to strengthen productivity and environmental stewardship."

Nitrogen under the tiles

Margenot, who also serves as associate director of the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center, received $768,000 to measure how enhanced nitrogen use efficiency fertilizer products and practices perform in tile-drained corn systems. The project will run replicated evaluations on monitored subsurface tile drainage, allowing the team to track fertilizer use efficiency and nitrogen losses through both gaseous emissions and leaching.

"This project will help test a new protocol for evaluating enhanced-efficiency fertilizer products under real Midwestern growing conditions," Margenot said. "At the same time, it will generate locally relevant information about the agronomic and economic performance of nitrogen management practices that Illinois farmers can use when making fertilizer decisions."

He points to a measurement gap at the heart of Illinois nitrogen policy. "Many of the nitrogen-loss reduction practices promoted in Illinois are designed to reduce nitrate moving through subsurface tile drainage," he said. "However, we still lack enough high-confidence field measurements showing exactly how much nitrate leaves fields through those systems. By pairing detailed water-quality measurements with crop yield and economic data, we can directly evaluate whether these practices work as intended. That gives farmers and policymakers stronger information on which practices deliver both environmental and agronomic benefits."

For corn growers farming on tile-drained ground, that matters directly. The work should show which enhanced-efficiency nitrogen products and practices actually cut nitrate losses without sacrificing yield or margin, replacing assumptions with local field data.

Phosphorus over multiple seasons

Jones received $843,000 to run field-scale evaluations of phosphorus fertilizers and their ability to prevent nutrient runoff and leaching across diverse Midwest soils and environments. His lab will compare fertilizer products, application timing, placement and rates while measuring both agronomic performance and environmental outcomes.

The four-year project will use rainfall simulations to capture surface runoff and specialized equipment to estimate nutrient movement through the soil. The multi-year design carries particular weight for phosphorus, which moves less readily through soil than nitrogen and cannot always be assessed accurately from a single growing season.

"Phosphorus does not move or behave like nitrogen, so a one-year snapshot can miss much of the story," Jones said. "By evaluating these products and management practices over multiple seasons, we can give farmers a clearer picture of how efficiently phosphorus is being used and where losses may occur."

Margenot sits as co-principal investigator on Jones's project, opening opportunities for the teams to coordinate field research and outreach on the two nutrients that matter most for crop production and water quality in Illinois and the wider region. The research sites sit near one another on the Urbana campus, so the teams can demonstrate nitrogen and phosphorus studies side by side at future field days.

All projects funded by the Efficient Fertilizer Consortium must follow its Field Trial Guidelines for Evaluating Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers. Developed with experts from academia, government, industry and commodity groups, the guidelines aim to secure scientific rigor and consistency across locations and projects — a standardization that should make results comparable between trials rather than specific to one site.

Linking trials to farms

The FFAR awards arrive as the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences and Illinois Extension deepen their partnership through the nearly $2 million Illinois ACES Land Grant Initiative. Margenot leads one of four projects selected through the initiative. The three-year project, "Bridging the gap by bringing the land grant to the field," will build a coordinated workflow for farmer-centered nutrient management research and outreach.

That project brings together Illinois researchers, Extension professionals, farmers and agricultural stakeholders to identify nutrient management needs, co-design studies, conduct on-farm trials, synthesize findings and communicate results. Jones serves as co-investigator, alongside fellow Illinois Nutrient Stewardship Alliance members and Extension educators from across Illinois.

INSA draws support from the Illinois Farm Bureau and Illinois Corn Growers Association. It exists to integrate nutrient management research more effectively, expand on-farm studies and make findings more accessible and useful to farmers throughout the state.

Together, the FFAR and land-grant investments cover complementary ground. The FFAR grants fund rigorous nitrogen and phosphorus research; the land-grant initiative builds the relationships and infrastructure needed to shape projects around farmers' needs and push results into practice. INSA researchers currently run on-farm studies throughout Illinois, from the northern part of the state to its southernmost farming regions.

"These projects give us a chance to connect careful field research with the questions farmers are asking across Illinois," Jones concluded. "The goal is not simply to generate more data. It is to produce information that farmers can use under the soil, weather and management conditions they actually face."

Farmers should watch for the first replicated tile-drainage results from Margenot's corn trials and early rainfall-simulation runoff data from Jones's phosphorus work, with joint demonstrations expected at field days on the Urbana campus as both multi-year projects progress.