Wheat grain yield and nitrogen uptake as influenced by fertilizer placement depth

Abstract

Global nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) for cereal production is estimated to be only 33%. Providing producers with efficient methods to increase the effectiveness of their N applications is integral to agricultural sustainability and environmental quality. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) injected at different depths on grain yield and uptake of N in grain. Liquid UAN (28–0–0) was applied in bands at depths of 5 and 10 cm, along with surface applications, all at various N rates around Feekes growth stage 5. Placement depth had the most significant impact on yield at low N rates. Subsurface application at 10 cm was most beneficial in low N no‐till (NT) soils, whereas surface treatments produced higher yields in low N environments of conventional till (CT) systems. Three of the four locations experienced higher rates of N uptake from subsurface applications when compared with surface treatments. No difference in grain N uptake was apparent between application depths of 5 and 10 cm. Subsurface N applications were beneficial in reducing rates of ammonia volatilization from urea‐based fertilizers. While there was no clear separation between 5 and 10 cm application depths, subsurface depths of 10 cm provide the most significant promise in benefiting yield in low N environments of NT soils and increasing grain N across CT and NT systems.

Value-Added Fertilizers Enhanced Growth, Yield and Nutrient Use Efficiency through Reduced Ammonia Volatilization Losses under Maize–Rice Cropping Cultivation

“…This maximum consumption of N may result in the least ammonia emissions, as we found in our study that applied polymer-coated N fertilizer had a greater recovery/use efficiency than those found by other value-added fertilizers (Figure 7). Coating the N fertilizer lowered ammonia emissions greatly because it maximized the use of the applied N [34,35], as was also revealed by higher N use efficiency and recovery efficiency in the present study (Figures 7 and 8).…”

Nitrogen fertilizer and tillage intensity affected winter wheat macronutrient uptake and utilization efficiencies

“…Overall, average grain yield was 53%, and biomass was 17% greater in 2020 compared with 2019, but biomass differences were apparent only for fertilizer rates above the control. A significant environment by N application effect on wheat biomass, NR, and NUtE was reported with prior studies (Bryant-Schlobohm et al, 2020;Hawkesford & Riche, 2020;Kostić et al, 2021). Harvest indices were significantly higher with the unfertilized control and remained fairly constant with N application possibly because of greater vegetative growth that increased the proportion of stover with N application rate compared with the unfertilized control.…”

Subsurface-Applied Coated Nitrogen Fertilizer Enhanced Wheat Production by Improving Nutrient-Use Efficiency with Less Ammonia Volatilization

“…So, the protection from atmospheric interaction induced by subsurface application of coated N fertilizer might have protected ammonium from getting lost via ammonia volatilization. The subsurface placement of N fertilizer was the effective method to decline in the gaseous emission from N fertilizer under field conditions [46].…”