Controlled-release N fertilizer to mitigate ammonia volatilization from double-cropping rice

Zheli Ding,Yuping Zhang,Qiang Liu,Mamdouh A. Eissa,Yong Yang,Jianwei Peng,Guixian Xie,Xiangming Rong,Xuan Zhou,Chang Tian

doi:10.1007/s10705-020-10108-3

Abstract

Controlled-release nitrogen fertilizer (CRNF) can effectively enhance crop yields and raise the efficiency of nitrogen fertilizer in agroecosystems. In the present study, the volatilization of NH3 was determined by airflow enclosure chamber technique after the application of different CRNF rates in double-cropping rice fields in southern China for continuous 3 years. The early and late season rice (ESR and LSR) were cultivated each year. The results showed that the total NH3 volatilization losses ranged from 25 to 56 kg N ha−1 in ESR and from 32 to 61 kg N ha−1 in LSR. The loss of N to the total applied N ranged from 12 to 29% in ESR and from 12 to 27% in LSR. The application of CRNF significantly reduced the cumulative NH3 volatilization losses by 20–43% for ESR and by 20–32% for LSR compared with conventional urea application. CRNF in LSR was less effective to reduce NH3 volatilization than that in ESR. Furthermore, the application of 80% of N rate in the form of CRNF gave higher grain yield and apparent nitrogen recovery efficiency (ANRE) than that of application of 100% of N rate from conventional urea. CRNF can effectively reduce NH3 volatilization, and increase rice yield and ANRE. Considering higher price of CRNF, the application of CRNF at lower (20% applied N) rate than conventional urea in LSR may be a reasonable fertilization strategy for improving N use efficiency, environment effectiveness, and sustaining the development of rice production systems in double-cropping rice.

Highlights

Ammonia (NH3) volatilization from agriculture sectors represents 80–90% of the total anthropogenic emission (Galloway and Cowling 2002; Zhang et al 2010)
Nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) for rice grown in China and fertilized with ammonium bicarbonate and urea was only 30–35%, and those losses accounted for about 50% of the applied N fertilizers (Huang et al 2006)
We found that the cumulative NH3 volatilization losses of doublecropping seasons increased linearly with N application rates of Controlled-release nitrogen fertilizer (CRNF) treatments across the years (YNH3= 0.1521xN ? 27.533, R2 = 0.9976**, p \ 0.01) (Fig. 3)

Summary

Introduction

Ammonia (NH3) volatilization from agriculture sectors represents 80–90% of the total anthropogenic emission (Galloway and Cowling 2002; Zhang et al 2010). NH3 volatilization from agricultural fields becomes an important pathway for N loss (Cai 1997). In rice fields for instance, it was estimated that NH3 volatilization losses reached up to 60% of the applied N fertilizer (Song et al 2004; Griggs et al 2007). High N application rate is important to increase grain yields for demands of increasing population globally, but this results in serious N losses from paddy fields with low nitrogen-use efficiency (Huang et al 2006; Chen et al 2015). Nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) for rice grown in China and fertilized with ammonium bicarbonate and urea was only 30–35%, and those losses accounted for about 50% of the applied N fertilizers (Huang et al 2006). Huang et al (2010) reported that high rates of N fertilizer may increase

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Discussion

Conclusion