Abstract
Phosphorus (P) supply to crops is a major constraint on the quantity and quality of food production in tropical soils, which are often characterized by highly weathered soils having low phosphorus use efficiency. Increasing P fertilizer use efficiency is a good tool for increasing food production to feed an increasing world population. Enhanced efficiency P fertilizer is used to achieve this goal. The lack of information about soil P diffusive flux and corn and common bean yield response with increased efficiency P fertilizers justify studies to evaluate the performance of this type of fertilizer. The aims of this study were to evaluate P diffusive flux and corn and common bean crop response to P sources and rates. A laboratory trial was carried out to evaluate soil P diffusive flux in response to P sources (MAP and Policote coated MAP). Field trials were carried out to evaluate corn and common bean yields in response to P sources (MAP and Policote coated MAP) and rates. Policote, an additive based on water-soluble polymers, is an anionic copolymer with iron an aluminum affinity. Increasing contact time between P-fertilizers and soil reduced phosphorus diffusive flux. Policote coated P-fertilizer resulted in higher phosphorus diffusion than conventional phosphorus fertilizer. Phosphorus fertilization increased corn and common bean yields. Policote coated phosphorus fertilizer resulted in higher agronomic P efficiency use, corn, and common bean yields than conventional phosphorus fertilizer. Policote coated P fertilizer can be used as an enhanced efficiency fertilizer and is a more efficient way to deliver required phosphorous to plants. Reducing farm investment, increasing agricultural profits, preserve phosphatic rocks reserves, and avoid the overuse of phosphate fertilizer could be realized through the rational use of enhanced efficiency fertilizers and fertilizer rate use reduction.
Highlights
Sub-optimal P nutrition can lead to crop yield losses in the range of 10% to 15% of the maximal yields (Shenoy & Kalagudi, 2005)
In the evaluations carried out at 48 and 60 days of incubation, the phosphorus diffusive flux (PDF) was statistically different between the P sources, when the Policoted coated MAP presented the highest PDF levels
The accumulated PDF increased with time, but stabilized with 24 days of MAP incubation, while it continued to increase with Policote coated MAP
Summary
Sub-optimal P nutrition can lead to crop yield losses in the range of 10% to 15% of the maximal yields (Shenoy & Kalagudi, 2005). Amelioration attempts by the addition of P-fertilizers are economically and ecologically unsound as the efficiency of added P-fertilizers is very low (Shenoy & Kalagudi, 2005). This scenario increases the pressure to increase P use efficiency. It is estimated that the plants absorb only 15 to 25% of P applied via fertilizer (Zanão et al, 2020) For this reason, much of the input P fertilizer is not used by crops. P-fertilizer diffusion in the soil affects applied P efficiency by influencing the probability of root/P-fertilizer contact as well as soil/P-fertilizer contact (Eghball et al, 1990)
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