Plastic Mulch Stimulates Nitrogen Mineralization in Urea‐Amended Soils in a Semiarid Environment

Abstract

Soil N mineralization is critical for designing appropriate N management strategies, though it has been seldom studied in plasticmulched croplands. We evaluated plastic mulch e ect on N mineralization in urea-amended furrow-ridge plots with and without maize (Zea mays L.) planting at a semiarid rain-fed site, China. Clear lm covered all soil surfaces in the mulched treatments and maize was seeded in furrows in the cropped treatments. Mulch increased daytime soil temperature in the 0 to 15 cm throughout the season without maize but only in the seedling and elongation stages with maize, compared with no mulch. Mulch increased soil moisture in the whole season without maize but only in the early growth with maize, compared with no mulch in 2011. However, the mulch in uence on soil moisture was independent on the presence of maize in 2012. Compared with non-mulched soils, N mineralization rate increased in mulched soils throughout the season in 2011 and 2012. By harvest, in 2011 total N mineralized averaged 112 kg ha -1 in mulched soils, contrasting to 54 kg N ha -1 immobilized in non-mulched soils; in 2012 total N mineralization was 348 kg ha -1 in mulched soils whereas it was 116 kg ha -1 in non-mulched soils. Maize increased N mineralization in the tasseling and silking stages compared with no maize. However, the mulch e ect on N mineralization rate was independent on the presence of maize. We concluded that plastic mulch increased N mineralization in urea-amended soils by increasing soil temperature and moisture.

Evaluation of the Agronomic Performance of Organic Processing Tomato as Affected by Different Cover Crop Residues Management

“…Despite the higher N supply to the soil by leguminous cover crops and their capacity to improve N recovery of tomato, they can be no more effective than other cover crop species or chemical fertilizers in retaining nitrates in the soil profile, mainly due to the high mobility of nitrate ions [28][29][30]. Plastic mulching increases N mineralization and accumulation in soil and was reported in a large number of studies to increase crop yields, and this was mainly due to the increase in soil temperature, by 2 to 6 °C, and soil moisture as we confirmed [31][32][33]. In the first year of the experiment, transplantation occurred in late June which may have inflicted a thermal stress on tomato seedlings during the early growth of the plant, thus hindering their performance.…”

Contributions of soil temperature and moisture drivers to variations in perennial vetch (Vicia unijuga) productivity potential in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau region of China

“…(Ramakrishna et al, 2006). Further, the current results showed that plastic-film mulch (especially the FM treatment) substantially increased soil available N and P, which agrees with Wang et al (2017) and Li et al (2007), who suggested that the increased soil temperature and moisture conditions with plastic-film mulch stimulate soil microbial activity and thus accelerate N mineralization and P transformation (Hu et al, 2012;Andersson et al, 2015;Hai et al, 2015). Above-ground dry matter of perennial vetch appeared to be strongly related to the temporal distribution of captured resources, mainly due to the increased leaf are index and P n (Bu et al, 2013a).…”

Fate and transport of urea-N in a rain-fed ridge-furrow crop system with plastic mulch

“…However, an average of 48.2% of residual total 15 N was as mineral 15 N in Plastic-Ridge, and the mineral 15 N was 10–100 times larger than that for Plastic-Furrow or Open. This higher mineral N in Plastic-Ridge might be related to the following two reasons: 1) the 15 N fertilizer was applied in the top soil layers and the plastic film prevented N leaching by rainfall (Jiang et al, 2018); 2) the increase in mineralization of microbial-assimilated organic N (the immobilized urea- 15 N by microorganisms at early stage of maize growing season) due to the higher temperature and moisture in mulched soil at late stage of maize growing season (Hai et al, 2015). Although both N mineralization and N immobilization processes occur simultaneously, a lower microbial biomass 15 N and higher mineral 15 N in Plastic (Fig.…”