Assessment of Fertilizer Management Strategies Aiming to Increase Nitrogen Use Efficiency of Wheat Grown Under Conservation Agriculture

Abstract

Sustainable crop production systems can be attained by using inputs efficiently and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) parameters are indirect measurements of sustainability of production systems. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of selected nitrogen (N) management treatments on wheat yields, grain and straw N concentration, and NUE parameters, under conservation agriculture (CA). The present study was conducted at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in northwest, Mexico. Seventeen treatments were tested which included urea sources, timing, and methods of fertilizer application. Orthogonal contrasts were used to compare groups of treatments and correlation and regression analyses were used to look at the relationships between wheat yields and NUE parameters. Contrasts run to compare wheat yields or agronomic efficiency of N (AE N ) performed similarly. Sources of urea or timing of fertilizer application had a significant effect on yields or AE N (p > 0.050). However, methods of application resulted in a highly significant (p < 0.0001) difference on wheat yields and agronomic efficiency of N. NUE parameters recorded in this study were average but the productivity associated to NUE levels was high. Results in this study indicate that wheat grew under non-critically limiting N supply levels, suggesting that N mineralization and reduced N losses from the soil under CA contributed to this favorable nutritional condition, thus minimizing the importance of N management practices under stable, mature CA systems.

Contrasting Impacts of Long-Term Application of Biofertilizers and Organic Manure on Grain Yield of Winter Wheat in North China Plain

“…The effects of organic manure and biofertilizers amendments on grain yield and 1000-grain weight varied in different studies. Research [31,42] reported that the grain yield and 1000-grain weight of maize received a half dose of N (102.75 Kg ha −1 ) fertilizer and biofertilizers were 13% and 10% greater than that in treatment with a full dose of N fertilizer (175 kg N ha −1 ), respectively. On the contrary, two studies revealed that biofertilizers and half dose of N fertilizer produced 25% and 17% less in grain yield and 1000-grain weight compared with that received a full dose of N fertilizer [26,38].…”

“…Research [25,26] reported that the wheat grain yields were comparable in the treatments that received 80 t ha −1 yr −1 of organic manure or 204-252 kg N ha −1 yr −1 chemical N-fertilizers. As for biofertilizers, [27][28][29] reported that application of one biofertilizers obtained from sewage sludge at 7.2 L ha −1 increased maize grain yield by 17% compared with the untreated control and [10,30,31] revealed that biofertilizers amendments reduced inorganic N-fertilizers by 25% without decreasing rice yield in India [32].…”

“…Nevertheless, limited literature is available on how organic manure or farm-yard-manure (FYM) and biofertilizers amendments combined with reduced chemical fertilizers can improve grain yield and yield components in the NCP winter wheat [18,33,34]. Furthermore, the national level food production depended upon the crop rotation system which is applied to 30 million hectare of wheat and maize crops in the North China Plain [31], accounting for 48% and 39%, respectively.…”

Efficiency of Mineral Nitrogen Fertilization in Winter Wheat under Pannonian Climate Conditions

“…The means for N concentration, N yield and NHI (over all treatments and both years) were: GNC-2.62%, SNC-0.43%, NY GRAIN -127.7 kg N ha −1 , NY STRAW -25.6 kg N ha −1 , NY AGB -153.3 kg N ha −1 and NHI-82.9% (Table 5). 2 Urea with nitrification inhibitor, 3 Incorporated Urea, 4 Liquid urea ammonium nitrate, 5 Analysis of variance, 6 Different letters indicate significant differences. Significant effects: p < 0.05 (*), p < 0.01 (**) and p < 0.001 (***), 7 Not significant.…”

“…Nitrogen management in agriculture aims to achieve agronomic objectives (farm income, high crop and livestock productivity) and environmental objectives (minimal N losses) simultaneously. Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and their components are indirect measurements of the sustainability of cereals production systems [2][3][4]. Improving the NUE, especially the fraction of N input harvested as product, is one of the most effective means of increasing crop productivity while decreasing environmental degradation [5].…”