Nitrogen (N) leaching under grazed pastures can be very high directly under urine spots. The amount of N which is returned by one excretion of urine or dung can locally exceed 1000 kg ha À1 a À1 which is far more than the uptake by surrounding plants during one grazing period. We therefore quantified the contribution of N deriving from urine and dung to the total N leaching under urine and dung patches. Dung N and urine N was separately sampled from a cow feed with 15 N labelled grassilage, and were amended on lysimeters in October 2000 and October 2001. Lysimeters (350 mm diameter and 800 mm length) were filled with sand, and an intact grass sod from a pasture, 4 lysimeter each were amended with the 15 N labelled dung and urine; 4 lysimeters without an application of dung or urine served as control. During 11 months after dung and urine amendment the amount of leachate was monitored and leachate was analysed for nitrate, ammonium and total N. 15 N in these fractions was measured. Dung and urine applications of 1052 and 1030 kg N ha À1 in autumn increased N leaching. Leaching loss of nitrate and dissolved organic N deriving from dung was only 37 kg N ha À1 in both years, whereas under urine patches 447 kg nitrate-N ha À1 , 108 kg N ha À1 ammonia-N and 53 kg ha À1 dissolved organic N leached on average of both experimental years. N not deriving from dung and urine exceeded the leached N under the control by about 36 and 136 kg ha À1 on average of both years, suggesting the contribution of different priming processes.

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Grazing animals highly influence the nutrient cycle by a direct return of 80% of the consumed N in form of dung and urine. In the autumn‐winter period, N uptake by the sward is low and rates of seepage water in sandy soils are high, hence high mineral‐N contents in soil and in seepage water as well as large losses of N2O are expected after cattle grazing in autumn. The objective of this study was the quanitfication of N loss deriving from urine and dung leaching and by N2O emission. Therefore the deposition of urine and dung patches was simulated in maximum rates excreted by cows by application of 15N‐labeled cow urine and dung (equivalent to 1030 kg N ha–1 and 1052 kg N ha–1, respectively) on a sandy pasture soil in N Germany. Leachate was collected in weekly intervals from free‐draining lysimeters, and 15N‐NO$ _3^- $, 15N‐NH$ _4^+ $, and 15N‐DON (dissolved organic N) were monitored over 171 d. Furthermore, the 15N‐N2O emission rates and the dynamics of inorganic 15N in the upper soil layer were monitored in a field trial, adjacent to the lysimeters. After 10 d following the urine application, the urea was completely hydrolyzed, shown by a 100% recovery of urine‐N in the soil NH$ _4^+ $. The following decrease of 15N‐NH$ _4^+ $ in the soil was higher than the increase of 15N‐NO$ _3^- $, and some N loss was explained by leaching. Amounts of 51% and 2.5% of the applied 15N were found in leachate as inorganic N, 2.4% and 0.7% as DON derived from urine and dung, respectively. Release of N2O from urine and dung patches applied to the pasture was low, with losses of 0.05% and 0.33% of the applied 15N, respectively. Overall loss of dung‐derived N was very low, but as the bulk dung N remained in the soil, N loss after mineralization of the dung needs to be investigated.

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