Variability in Corn Yield Response to Nitrogen Fertilizer in Eastern Canada

Abstract

Corn (Zea mays L.) yield response to N has been found to vary spatially within a field. The objective of this study was to examine how grain corn yield response to N varies with planting date, soil texture, and spring weather across sites and years in the Montérégie region. Trials were conducted from 2002 to 2004 and 2006 to 2010, at 11 sites with 23 hybrids and four N application rates, for a total of 45 site-years. Each site-year involved five or six N rates ranging from 80-90 to 240 kg N ha -1 . Grain yield response to N rates varied among site-years. Trials were separated into two groups based on optimal and late planting dates. Significant differences in grain yield among the applied N rates were observed in all of the site-years planted at optimal dates (from 8.8-14.7 Mg ha -1 ), and in most of those planted late (8.5-12.8 Mg ha -1 ). Economic optimum nitrogen rates (EONR) ranged less widely for site-years planted on optimal dates (180-237 kg N ha -1 ) than for those planted late (132-237 kg N ha -1 ). The EONR was affected by soil textural classes and rainfall. On coarse-textured soils, more N was needed to optimize grain yield in years with wet growing seasons. These results suggest that the current N recommendations for corn in Quebec should consider the variability in response associated with site-specific effects of planting date, soil texture, and weather.

Water table management and fertilizer application impacts on CO2, N2O and CH4 fluxes in a corn agro-ecosystem

“…All three hybrids used in our study (P9411, P9855 and P9917) were chosen within the 2800–2950 CHU range of the Pioneer brand products. This was considered to be a relatively narrow variation in CHU 69 . As such, the impact of CHU and of hybrid variation in this study were not expected to be significant.…”

Combination of biological and chemical soil tests best predict maize nitrogen response

“…This is not to say there is no interaction between weather and N response, but rather we did not observe a strong effect here with our limited weather data. The importance of weather in regulating N response has clearly been shown by the Wisconsin study mentioned previously (Andraski & Bundy, 2002), but also more recently by others, including how rainfall is distributed over a growing season or part of a growing season (Kablan et al., 2017; Tremblay et al., 2012; Xie et al., 2013). Interactions between soil N‐supplying power and current‐year weather interact in complex ways and remains poorly understood by agronomists.…”

“…(1999) across similar sites in the US Midwest (between 1988–1992) found a similar percentage of responsive sites (56%), but had a less strict definition of responsive as just ≤ 90% relative yield. Nevertheless, more recent studies find that the majority of sites respond to N fertilizer addition (Kablan et al., 2017; Laboski et al., 2008; Woli et al., 2016; Yost et al., 2018). We split the 23 nonresponsive site‐years into two groups: (i) 12 site‐years were deemed high‐yielding (NRHY) with average 0N yield of 12.75 Mg ha −1 , and 11 site‐years low‐yielding (NRLY) with average 0N yield of 8.19 Mg ha −1 .…”

Development and Performance Evaluation of a Precise Application System for Liquid Starter Fertilizer while Sowing Maize

“…Fertilizer is an important input in agricultural production as it increases crop yields with proper use [1][2][3]. To ensure food security, large amounts of fertilizer have been used in the past several decades [4,5].…”