Effects of single basal application of coated compound fertilizer on yield and nitrogen use efficiency in double cropped rice

Effects of single basal application of coated compound fertilizer on yield and nitrogen use efficiency in double cropped rice The Crop Journal xxx (2017) xxx–xxx CJ 00213; No of Pages 5 Contents lists[.]

Effects of single basal application of coated compound fertilizer on yield and nitrogen

Jiana Chena, Fangbo Caoa, Hairong Xiongb, Min Huanga, Yingbin Zoua,⁎ , Yuanfu Xiongc,⁎

a

College of Agronomy, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China

b Center of Analysis and Testing, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China

c

College of Science, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China

a b s t r a c t

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 29 August 2016

Received in revised form 13 December 2016

Accepted 22 January 2017

Available online xxxx

Fertilizer plays an important role in increasing rice yield More than half of all fertilizer applied to thefield is not taken up, resulting in environmental damage and substantial economic losses To address these concerns, a low-cost, coated compound fertilizer named“Xiang Nong Da” (XND), requiring only a single basal application, was studied A two-yearfield experiment was conducted to test the effects of XND application on rice yield and nitro-gen fertilizer use efficiency An ordinary uncoated compound fertilizer (UNCF), with 20% more nutrients and split application was selected as the control The yield of XND-treated rice was only 3.1% lower than that of the control,

an insignificant difference There were no significant differences between N use efficiency indices of the two fer-tilizer treatments except for N partial factor productivity (PFPN) PFPNof XND treatment was 19.7%–23.2% higher than the control, a significant difference This result indicates that a 20% decrease in N application rate is possible with XND without yield reduction and with savings in both labor and time

© 2017 Crop Science Society of China and Institute of Crop Science, CAAS Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Keywords:

Rice

Yield

Fertilizer

Nitrogen use efficiency

1 Introduction

Rice is the main staple food forN60% of China's population[1]

Fertil-izer is a determining factor for rice growth and plays a vital role in

main-taining rice yield Increased fertilizer application has contributed

significantly to improved rice yield[2–4] Although fertilization drives

productivity, nitrogen use efficiency in rice production is very low,

with nitrogen use efficiency in China averaging only 27.5%[5] High

ex-ternal N input and ineffective fertilization practices have led to low

ni-trogen use efficiency[2,3,6,7] Leaching, runoff, and volatilization are

the major N loss pathways Besides the low nitrogen use efficiency,

ex-cessive fertilizer infields harms the environment by increasing the

greenhouse effect, soil degradation, and groundwater pollution[8] In

view of the present situation, many N conservation application practices

such as balanced N fertilization, site-specific N management, integrated

N management, nitrification inhibitor use, and controlled-release

fertil-izers (CRF), have been developed to improve nitrogen use efficiency[7,

9,10] Recently, the use of CRF has become common to lessen fertilizer

consumption, increase nitrogen use efficiency, and minimize

environ-mental pollution[9,11,12] CRF is a type of fertilizer that controls the

rate of nutrient supply It is a polymer-coated fertilizer, generally a

com-pound fertilizer or urea coated with polymer[13] Many studies have

found that CRF applications significantly increase nitrogen use

efficiency and crop yield[14,15] They are also more environmentally friendly fertilizers, because the N losses through leaching and denitri fi-cation are reduced[16,17,22,23] Conventional fertilization requires fre-quent applications, whereas a CRF needs only a single application and is thus more labor and time saving than conventional fertilization Thus, study of controlled-release fertilizer techniques is important for increasing rice yield and fertilizer efficiency The present study in-vestigated a low-cost, coated compound controlled-release fertilizer,

“Xiang Nong Da” (XND), comparing yield and N use efficiency of test rice cultivars treated with XND or a conventional compound fertilizer with two applications, XND supplied 20% fewer nutrients in the test The study's objectives were to investigate the effects of XND treatment

on rice yield and N use efficiency

2 Materials and methods 2.1 Site description Field experiments were conducted during the early season (late March to July) and the late season (mid-June to late October) in 2014 and 2015 in the samefield located in Liuyang county, Hunan province, China (28°09′N, 113°37′E, 43 m.a.s.l.) In 2014 before the experiments, experimental site soil samples were collected from the upper 20 cm The soil was clayey with pH 6.25, 23.49 g organic C kg−1, 1.24 total

N kg−1, 18.24 mg kg−1available P, and 112.71 mg kg−1available K

The Crop Journal xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

⁎ Corresponding authors.

E-mail addresses: ybzou123@126.com (Y Zou), yuanfuxiong888@163.com (Y Xiong).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cj.2017.01.002

2214-5141/© 2017 Crop Science Society of China and Institute of Crop Science, CAAS Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ).

Contents lists available atScienceDirect

The Crop Journal

2.2 Genetic material

An early-season rural conventional rice variety“Zhongjiazao 17”

was used for early-season experiments A late-season hybrid rice variety

“Shengtaiyou 9712” (Shengtaiyou A × 9712) was used for late-season

experiments These are major cultivars currently widely used in China's

Yangtze River valley

2.3 Experimental design

The experimental design was a completely randomized block with 3

replicates Each plot had an area of 4 m × 5 m Three fertilizer

treat-ments were applied:

T1: a control with no N application

T2: an ordinary compound fertilizer, N–P2O5–K2O (20–5–10),

pro-duced by Hunan Hua Lu Company, at an N rate of 135 kg ha−1

T3: XND, a controlled-release fertilizer, N–P2O5–K2O (20–5–10), a

low-cost, self-developed polymer-coated compound fertilizer[17],

pro-duced by Hunan agricultural university, at an N rate of 108 kg ha−1

XND (T3) was used as basal fertilizer once before planting rice The

ordinary fertilizer (T2) was applied as a split application at two rice

de-velopmental stages: one (50%) at preplant and other (50%) at the

tiller-ing stage P and K fertilizers in the T1 treatment were applied as basal

dressings at the rate of 34 (P2O5) and 68 (K2O) kg ha−1, and were

ap-plied in T2 and T3 at the same rate

The nurseryfield was prepared one week before sowing The

com-pound fertilizer (nutrient contentN 35%) was applied to the nursery

field at a rate of 450 kg ha−1before plowing Germinated seeds were

sown in nursery beds at a rate of 30 g m−2on May 23 for early season

and June 27 for late season in both years They were transplanted to a

spacing of 20.0 cm × 16.5 cm, with three seedlings per hill Seedling

age at transplanting was 30 days in early season and 24 days in late

sea-son The water regime management was in the sequence of shallow

ir-rigations (2–3 cm), midseason drainage (10–15 days), and shallow

irrigation Pests and diseases were controlled using chemicals Weeds

were controlled using herbicides and hand pulling

2.4 Measurement and sampling

2.4.1 Dry matter, yield, and yield components

Six hills were diagonally sampled from each subplot at full heading

stage (when about 80% of the panicles had emerged from theflag leaf

sheath) Samples were separated into leaves, stems, and panicles Each part was oven-dried in an oven at 75 °C to constant weight

At physiological maturity, in the middle of each subplot, ten hills of plants were diagonally sampled Panicles were counted to calculate panicles m−2 Plant samples were separated into panicles and straw (including rachis) Panicles were hand-threshed Unfilled spikelets were then separated fromfilled spikelets by submersion in water Three 30 g subsamples offilled grain and all unfilled spikelets were manually counted Straw andfilled and unfilled spikelets were oven-dried at 75 °C to constant weight Spikelets per panicle, spikeletfilling percentage, and harvest index were then calculated Grain yield was ob-tained from a 5 m2area in each plot and adjusted to the standard mois-ture content of 0.14 kg H2O kg−1

2.4.2 Leaf area index [LAI] and N content

A leaf area meter (LI-3000, LI-COR, Lincoln, NE, USA) was used to measure the green leaf area at full heading stage and LAI was calculated leaf area/unit ground area

N concentrations in stem,filled and unfilled, were measured with a Skalar SAN Plus segmentedflow analyzer (Skalar Inc., Breda, The Neth-erlands) N uptake was calculated by biomass multiply N content Nitrogen fertilizer use efficiency indices were calculated as follows:

Applied N partial factor productivity PFPð NÞ ¼ GYð þNÞ=FN

Applied N agronomic efficiency AEð NÞ ¼ GYð þN−GY‐NÞ=FN

Applied N crop recovery efficiency REð NÞ %

¼ TNð þN−TN‐NÞ=FN  100

Applied N physiological efficiency PEð NÞ

¼ GYð þN−GY‐NÞ= TNð þN−TN‐NÞ

where TN+N= N total accumulation of aboveground plants in the plot that received N fertilizer; TN−N= total N accumulation of aboveground plants in the zero-N control; FN = the amount of N fertilizer applied;

GY+ N= grain yield in the plot that received N fertilizer; GY−N= grain yield in the zero-N control

Fig 1 Daily maximum and minimum temperatures during the experimental period.

2 J Chen et al / The Crop Journal xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

2.5 Data analysis

Data were analyzed by analysis of variance (Statistix 8.0, Analytical

Software, Tallahassee, FL, USA), and significant differences between

means were identified by the Least Significant Difference test at the

0.05 probability level

2.6 Climatic conditions

Maximum and minimum temperatures for the experimental periods

within the season followed the same trends in both years (Fig 1) In the

early season, maximum and minimum temperatures increased

tween transplanting and maturity In the late season, temperatures

be-tween transplanting and maturity decreased For both years in both

seasons, experimental period average maximum and minimum

tem-peratures were approximately 30 °C and 22 °C

3 Results

3.1 Grain yield and yield attributes

There was no significant difference in grain yield between T2 and T3

in both years and seasons But these yields were significantly higher

than those of T1 (Table 1) T2 consistently reached the highest yield

re-gardless of year or season

There were significant differences between the zero-N treatment

(T1) and the N treatments (T2, 135 kg ha−1, T3, 108 kg ha−1) in

panicles m−2(Table 1) The ranking across years and seasons was as

fol-lows: T2N T3 N T1 T2 consistently produced more panicles m−2

regard-less of year or season, but significantly more than T3 only in the 2014

late season Spikelets per panicle were fewer in T1 than in the other

two treatments in both years and seasons except for the 2014 early

sea-son There were significant differences in spikelets per panicle between

T2 and T3 in the 2014 late season Grain-filling percentage was slightly

higher in T1 than in other treatments for 2015, but not 2014 The

rank-ing across different years and seasons was as follows: T1N T2 N T3 Grain

weight among treatments was not consistent and did not show an

iden-tifiable trend

T1 total biomass production was significantly lower than that of the

other two treatments for all years and seasons, with no significant

dif-ferences between T2 and T3 T3 was always higher than T2 except in

2014 early season Differences in harvest index between T2 and T3

were insignificant

3.2 N uptake and N use efficiency T2 achieved the greatest total N uptake regardless of year or season (Table 2), but it was not significantly higher than that of T3 AEN, REN,

PEN, and PFPNwere higher in T3 than in T2 for all years and seasons There were no significant differences in AENor PENbetween T2 and T3 The PFPNof T3 was significantly higher except in 2014 late season

3.3 LAI LAI atflowering was significantly different between treatments T1 showed the lowest LAI atflowering across all years and seasons (Fig

2) During 2014 late season and 2015 early season, LAI atflowering was significantly higher in T3 than in T2 There was no significant differ-ence between T2 and T3 in 2014 early season and 2015 late season Gen-erally, LAI atflowering among treatments showed a similar ranking (T3N T2 N T1) across all years and seasons

Table 1

Grain yield, yield components, total biomass production, and harvest index under three fertilizer treatments in 2014 and 2015.

Year, season, and

treatment

Grain yield (t ha−1)

Panicles (m−2)

Spikelets per panicle

Spikelet filling percentage (%)

Grain weight (mg)

Total biomass (g m−2)

Harvest index (%)

2014 Early season

2014 Late season

2015 Early season

2015 Late season

Within each column, values followed by different letters are significantly different at the 0.05 probability level according to Least Significant Difference test.

Table 2 Total N uptake, applied N agronomic efficiency (AE N ), applied N crop recovery efficiency (RE N ), applied N physiological efficiency (PE N ), and applied N partial factor productivity (PFP N ) under three fertilizer treatments in 2014 and 2015.

Year, season, and treatment

Total N uptake (kg ha −1 )

AE N

(kg kg −1 )

RE N

(%)

PE N

(kg kg −1 )

PFP N

(kg kg −1 )

2014 Early season T1 44.12 b T2 104.95 a 23.68 a 45.06 a 55.78 a 65.50 b T3 93.87 a 26.16 a 46.07 a 56.54 a 78.43 a

2014 Late season T1 45.91 b T2 102.78 a 25.66 a 42.13 b 61.12 a 66.08 a T3 96.67 a 28.88 a 47.01 a 61.74 a 79.40 a

2015 Early season T1 70.39 b T2 153.43 a 30.88 a 61.51 a 51.61 a 72.43 b T3 142.41 a 35.49 a 66.69 a 52.72 a 87.43 a

2015 Late season T1 55.36 b T2 125.86 a 30.58 a 52.22 a 58.90 a 64.53 b T3 120.69 a 37.12 a 60.49 a 63.73 a 79.55 a Within each column, values followed by different letters are significantly different at the 0.05 probability level according to Least Significant Difference test.

4 Discussion

N loss is a severe problem in rice cultivation Nitrogen use efficiency

in rice is often low as a result of high N loss through volatilization,

leaching, and denitrification Controlled-release fertilizers generally

outperform granular urea fertilizer in reducing N losses, stimulating

plant growth, and increasing nitrogen use efficiency[12] Yang et al

[18]reported that using controlled-release urea (CRU) in rice without

additional fertilizer application during the growing season significantly

increased N availability in soil and improved yields by 13.6%–26.5% In

the present study, the rice yield was 3.1% lower under XND treatment

than under ordinary compound fertilizer treatment, but XND requires

only one application and is more labor and time saving than standard

compound fertilizers, which require split fertilization The labor cost of

fertilization of XND was only half that of the ordinary compound

fertilizer

Considering the negative impact of over fertilization on grain yield,

damage to the environment, and decrease in nitrogen use efficiency

and grain quality, it is desirable to pay more attention to reducing

fertil-izer inputs in rice production in China[6,19,20] Gen et al.[21]found

that reducing the CRU rate by 30% produced the same crop yield as

with the 100% rate of urea, and rice yield under a CRU 50% treatment

showed no significant difference from that under a urea 100%

treat-ment In our experiment, XND treatment supplied only 80% of the N

amount of standard compound fertilizers

The application of controlled release fertilizer can increase rice

pro-duction by increasing the number of panicles m−2and spikelets per

panicle[22,23] In the present study, analysis of yield components

indi-cated that XND rice yield did not decrease significantly, owing to larger

panicle size (spikelets per panicle) Equal total biomass production was

responsible for the similar grain yield between the two treatments

There have been consistentfindings that controlled-release fertilizer

can improve nitrogen use efficiency in rice production compared with

regular fertilizer[12,14,18,24] Nitrogen use efficiency is a widely used

index in evaluating fertilizer management efficiency, and it can be

fur-ther separated into different component indices to represent diverse

as-pects[25,26] In this study, there were no significant differences

between N use efficiency indices of the two fertilizer treatments except

for PFPN, which is an aggregate efficiency index that includes

contribu-tions to grain yield derived from indigenous soil N uptake, fertilizer N

uptake efficiency, and the efficiency with which N acquired by the rice plant is converted to grain yield[27] Tang et al.[28]showed that at

30 days after fertilization, single basal application of controlled-release fertilizers increased soil available N by 147.9% in comparison to a control treatment That author indicated that the main mechanisms for increas-ing rice yield usincreas-ing a sincreas-ingle basal application of controlled-release fertil-izers should be attributed to greater soil N supply availability Thus, in the present study, the similarly high yield from XND treatment may have been driven mainly by indigenous soil N and not by fertilizer N But we did not measure the variety of soil N content after applied the CRF Further studies are needed to explain the mechanisms of increase

in rice yield using XND

5 Conclusion XND, a one-time basal fertilizer (80% N), achieved nearly identical yields to uncoated compound fertilizer used in a split application (100% N) It showed consistently higher values than the control for par-tial factor productivity of N (PFPN)·Thisfinding supports the conclusion that controlled release fertilizers such as XND should be explored as a partial substitute for common fertilizers in order to obtain sustainable increases in crop yields and decrease labor costs

Acknowledgments This research was supported by the Special Fund for Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest (201303103) and China Agriculture Re-search System (CARS-01)

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