Modification of conventional fertilizers for enhanced property and function

【Objectives】 The comprehensive summary and commendation on the significance, achievements and development trends in modification on conventional fertilizers for enhanced property and function in China are meaningful for making the strategies for the development of chemical fertilizer industry in the future.【Methods】 Literatures relating to the progress in effect-enhancement and property modification of conventional fertilizers were collected and summarized. The development trends in the future were forecasted and some strategies were proposed. 【Results】 Due to its high activity of N and fixing of P in soil, the conventional N and P fertilizers have low nutrient use efficiency with consequence of serious environmental pollution in China. Therefore, it is of great significance to practice effect-enhanced modification for conventional fertilizers to upgrade their properties and functions. Currently the four measures taken in modifying the conventional fertilizers are using slow nutrient release, biological inhibitors, effect-enhancing additives and organic/inorganic combination. The products produced by employing the above four technological measures are named respectively slow-release fertilizer, stabilized fertilizer, value-added fertilizer and organic/inorganic compound fertilizer. At present, the annual production of the above four kinds of fertilizers has reached 13 million tons (commercial amount) and their annual application area reached around 27 million hectares, and the grain yield increase has reached 11 million tons. The achievement contributed greatly to promoting crop yield improvement, farmer's income increase and environment protection. It is a systematic work to promote the practice of effect-enhanced modification for conventional fertilizers, and government policy support can help speed up the spread and expansion of the new products. 【Conclusions】 The practice of effect-enhanced modification for conventional fertilizers is crucial to upgrading fertilizer property and function and consequently to increasing fertilizer use efficiency. More efforts are needed in research and policy-making support in the future in China.