Sustainable controlled-release urea placement depth reduces lodging risk and enhances spring maize productivity

Abstract

In conventional maize planting systems, farmers' fertiliser is artificially urea surface broadcasting method, which can lead to uneven fertiliser placement accompanied by crop lodging, especially in the case of excessive nitrogen application , 2023. Controlled-release urea is widely used in rice, wheat and maize (Qiang et al. 2020, Zhu et al. 2020, Lan et al. 2024. The controlled-release urea placement depths significantly impact nitrogen use efficiency, which greatly improves crop yield and reduces nitrogen loss (Ke et al. 2018). Previous reports have shown deep controlled-release urea placement (12 cm) could reduce the nitrogen addition by 20% and improve nitrogen use efficiency, resulting in yield benefits (Qiang et al. 2022). Chen et al. (2023 and Wu et al. (2022) found that deep nitrogen fertilisation can improve crop yield by promoting root