Crop-specific global fertilizer application rates from “Closing yield gaps through nutrient and water management”

Crop-specific global maps of N, P2O5, and K2O fertilizer application rates circa the year 2000 from the following paper:

Mueller, ND, JS Gerber, M Johnston, DK Ray, N Ramankutty, and JA Foley. 2012. Closing yield gaps through nutrient and water management. Nature 490: 254–257

Data are provided at five arc-minute resolution and are saved as netcdf files. Fertilizer application rates are estimated from reconciling various national and subnational data sources. See the Supplementary Information from the 2012 paper for a full description of data sources and methods. Data quality for each grid cell is described in a map layer. Files containing the text "totalcons" sum nutrient consumption across crops per grid cell, using crop harvested areas from Monfreda et al. 2008 Global Biogeochemical Cycles. For maize, wheat, and soybean N application rates, additional maps and csv files (containing the text "politboundaries") identify the political units around the world containing unique information. Crops and crop group categories are consistent with those utilized in Monfreda et al. 2008 Global Biogeochemical Cycles.