Frederik van der Bom

Project title

HARMONY: Harnessing rhizosphere synergies to mobilise  legacy phosphorus

What is your project about?

Harmony is about finding a way to use the phosphorus that is already stored in our soils. Years of fertiliser use have left behind large reserves that are mostly unavailable to plants. These can cause pollution when they wash into rivers and lakes, but they are also valuable because phosphorus is a limited resource that we depend on. The project explores how we can use plant diversity to mobilise this stored phosphorus. Each plant has its own way of interacting with the soil. The main idea is that, like instruments in a symphony, they do not all play the same part. But together, they can create something greater than any single plant could achieve alone.

How did you become interested in your particular field of research?

In many ways, I just stumbled into it through a long chain of coincidences, starting with a broad program for my university degree that gradually pulled me in. I never intended to do a PhD, but then I discovered I really enjoyed research, and one thing led to another. Looking back, I suppose I have always been curious about how things work, and I have always had a thing for plants, so maybe it was inevitable. What keeps me going is a mix of curiosity and interest in complexity and optimisation, especially the hidden interactions in soil, alongside the challenge to find better, more efficient solutions for using farmland more sustainably under climate change.

What are the scientific challenges and perspectives in your project?

A key challenge is the complexity of real world systems. Ideas that work well in the laboratory, where conditions are carefully controlled, do not always perform reliably in the field, where soils, weather, and management all influence the outcomes. Understanding and working with this variability is difficult, but essential if we want practical solutions. At the same time, this complexity is also an opportunity. It forces us to think beyond simple approaches and to design diverse, targeted systems with the potential to make agriculture both more efficient and more resilient.

What is your estimate of the impact, which your project may have to society in the long term?

In the long term, the project could help make agriculture more sustainable and resilient. By making better use of the phosphorus already in soils, we may reduce the need for fertiliser imports, lower environmental impacts, and improve resource efficiency. More broadly, the project contributes to finding solutions to farming systems that perform reliably under real world conditions. Many promising ideas in plant and soil science come from research conducted under controlled conditions but unfortunately results derived in labs often translate poorly to agricultural systems. The project is about bridging this gap, combining fundamental knowledge with a cropping systems perspective to understand not only what works, but where, when and why things work in practice.

Which impact do you expect the Sapere Aude programme will have on your career as a researcher?

Receiving the Sapere Aude grant is a major milestone that gives me the freedom to pursue ideas that are both scientifically exciting and relevant for real world agriculture. In particular, it allows me to build and sustain my research direction and team by bringing together different methods and expertise around a single question. The grant is also a strong vote of confidence, which is motivating and energising.