Nutrient Expert Development and Assessment

The objectives of this project, initiated in 2011, are: (1) to develop, test, and refine the Nutrient Expert (NE) fertilizer decision support tool for new crops and new geographies, maize in sub-Saharan Africa; rice in China and India; soybean in China and India; wheat in North Africa; and maize with different variety types in the Philippines); (2) to conduct field trials and build agronomic databases for non-cereal crops (i.e., cassava, cotton); and (3) to initiate development of ICT-based tools to help in the dissemination of the field-validated versions of NE.

Development, field validation and refinement of NE for new crops and geographies in Asia and Africa continued in 2017. Field validation consists of at least two years of testing NE recommendations against local recommendations and farmer’s fertilizer practices (FFP). A tool is considered field validated after recommendations from it has been demonstrated to be effective in improving farmers’ yields and profits or maintained farmers’ high yields, and also improved their fertilizer use efficiency. Development and enhancement of the mature versions for multi-platform use, such as with computers and mobile Android devices, continued in 2017.

In 2017, six beta versions for new crops or geographies were developed: Potato - China, Rice - Bangladesh, Maize - Ghana, Maize - Togo, Maize - Burkina Faso, and Cassava - Philippines. Field validation and refinement continued for three beta versions: Soybean - India, Hybrid Maize - Ethiopia, and Hybrid Maize - Tanzania. The field validation of two NE tools were completed: NE Maize Nigeria and NE Wheat North Africa (Morocco).The NE Data Analytics was further developed and improved to enable automatic data capture, storage, and export, and a feature enabling NE recommendations to be sent in bulk to farmers through text messaging from an Android device was constructed. We conducted one site visit and three consultation meetings with local experts, and delivered nine NE presentations to different partners and users. We published four NE articles in refereed journals and one press release. Building regional capacity for NE development through training continued.

This project has produced 13 field-validated mature versions, and nine beta versions are under field validation, covering a total of six crops, 18 countries, and eight languages. The mature Nutrient Expert versions are now being used by regional programs in Asia and Africa to roll out 4R-compliant fertilizer recommendations in their regions. They are available for download at software.ipni.net.