Reduced Nitrogen Input Combined with Nitrogen-Saving japonica Rice Varieties Balances Yield and Nitrogen Use Efficiency in The Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River in China

Abstract

Maintaining rice yield and reducing nitrogen (N) input are two important targets in sustainable agriculture practices. The adoption of a nitrogen-saving variety (NSV) provides a unique opportunity to achieve this. However, limited options in NSV japonica rice and a lack of information on their responses to N reduction make management decisions difficult. This study aims to explore the responses of yield and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in NSV to N reduction. Two newly released NSVs and two popular general varieties (GVs) of japonica rice were field tested in Yangzhou, located at the lower reaches of Yangtze River of China, in two consecutive years. The results showed that for NSVs, with a 40–60% reduction in common practice N rate (300 Kg ha−1), the rice yield could maintain a record average level (p < 0.05), whereas the yield for the GV would drop 20–30% (p < 0.05). This indicates that combining the practices of adoption of NSV and N reduction to 120–180 Kg N ha−1 could balance the yield and N consumption. Moderate N reduction promotes the N accumulation and NUE, and it increases the number of tillers, the productive tiller percentage and the total amount of spikelets in the population, and increases the carbon and N metabolism of the population in the NSV. Compared with GV, NSV showed higher NUE and non-structural carbohydrate re-mobilization in the reduced N rate. The results showed that the practice of N reduction has to adopt NSV at the same time in order to maintain the grain yield level in rice.