Radiation, water, and nitrogen use efficiencies of Gossypium hirsutum L.

Abstract

Proper management of agro-based resources is a major baseline for precision agriculture (Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2011). In Pakistan, cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is a widely cultivated fiber crop with limited available resources, namely selection of low-graded cultivars, imbalanced nutrient application, inadequate irrigation water supply, and so on, which contributes towards lower per capita yield production (Bibi et al., 2011;. Among the different resources, nitrogen is an important plant nutrient required in larger quantities by the cotton crop to enhance its productivity (

Improving nitrogen-use and radiation-use efficiencies of C4 summer cerealsby split nitrogen applications under an irrigated arid environment

“…However, RUE is mainly affected by various abiotic factors in general (Kemanian et al, 2004), water (Ahmad et al, 2008), nutrients and particularly N (Muurinen and Peltonen-Sainio, 2006), and environments (Lecoeur and Ney, 2003). The RUE for various crops also varies at different growth stages (Zahoor et al, 2010;Ahmad et al, 2015). In a recent study, Ahmad et al (2012) reported that N split application as a top dressing along with a basal dose at sowing to C 3 winter cereals in saline soils under irrigated arid environments may be adopted as an alternate strategy to enhance NUE and RUE by decreasing the losses of N fertilizer.…”

“…Currently, the productivity level of cereals, and particularly C 4 summer cereals, in Pakistan is very low compared to other growing countries (Ahmad et al, 2012). The inherent low productivity is the result of poor utilization of natural resources (land and radiation) and inputs (water and fertilizers), resulting in less resource-use efficiency (Mahmood et al, 2013;Ahmad et al, 2015), and climate change (Rehman et al, 2015). Ironically, farmers growing summer cereal crops use age-old agronomic practices, rather than adopting the best agricultural practices to harness higher resource-use efficiency.…”

Resource Use Efficiencies of C3 and C4 Cereals under Split Nitrogen Regimes

“…Principally, it is essential to boost NUE through better approaches to increase RUE. So, split N application regimes result in considerable boost in NUE, production, and resultantly RUE by reducing losses and improving uptake [41]. It is a rising concern that most of the available or applied N is lost, thereby reducing NUE, which is just 29% for cereals in developing agrarian economies [55,56].…”

“…Nitrogen is the key constituent of agricultural inputs to maintain production of these cereals throughout their lifecycle [51][52][53][54] (Figure 3). Surplus N and/or N applied without splitting can be lost through pathways such as nitrification and volatilization [8,40,41] (Figure 1). Principally, it is essential to boost NUE through better approaches to increase RUE.…”

“…Reported N losses ( Figure 2) are presented in Table 2 [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. Lower production is due to the meager use of all available resources along with climate variability and change [3,[39][40][41][42]. Paradoxically, growers growing C 3 and C 4 cereals adopt conventional practices instead of approved practices that make more efficient use of resources [43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50].…”