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Evidence of the “priming effect” on the uptake of soil N by additions of rather conservative amounts of fertilizer N was examined in data from two recently reported field experiments. In these experiments, urea and oxamide each labeled with 15N were compared on adjacent locations in successive years with ‘Sudax SX11’ Sorghum‐sudan hybrid (Sorghum sudanense) as the test crop. The priming effect in the first experiment was calculated from data from four cuttings during the first year and from a residual cutting during the second year. For the second experiment, data were used from the three cuttings harvested during the year the fertilizers were applied.Additions of N fertilizer increased the uptake of soil N by 17 to 45% in the first experiment in 1966 and by 8 to 27% in the second experiment in 1967. In the residual cutting of the first experiment, increases in uptake of soil N ranged from less than 0 to 29%. The increase in uptake of soil N by the crops was speculated to be due to stimulation of microbial activity by N fertilizers which increased mineralization of soil N, thus making more soil N available for use by plants.

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The objective was to measure inorganic N removal from soil by soybeans (Glycine max L.) grown at different N levels. Nodulating and non‐nodulating isolines of ‘Clark’ soybeans were planted on Flanagan silt loam in 1972 and 1973. Fertilizer rates of 0, 112, 224, and 448 kg N/ha as Ca(NO3)2 enriched with 1% 15N were applied.Symbiotically fixed N decreased from 48 to 10% of the total N in the above‐ground plant as applied fertilizer N increased from 0 to 448 kg/ha. Net removals of N by soybean grain were 61, 109, 135, and 149 kg/ha at 0, 112, 224, and 448 kg fertilizer N/ha rates, respectively.Corn (Zea mays L.) grain grown on adjacent plots removed 62, 123, 129, and 133 kg N/ha at fertilizer N rates of 0, 112, 224, and 336 kg/ha, respectively.The study indicates that soybeans are good scavengers for inorganic N in soils. Inclusion of net N removal by soybeans in the calculated N removed by nonleguminous crops in Illinois from 1945 to 1973 increases net crop N removal by approximately 37%. Added fertilizer N has exceeded the N removed by the harvested portion of Illinois crops in only 5 years since 1945, all 5 of these occurring after 1965.