Dataset Information

Nitrate leaching in a winter wheat-summer maize rotation on a calcareous soil as affected by nitrogen and straw management.

ABSTRACT: Nitrate leaching is one of the most important pathways of nitrogen (N) loss which leads to groundwater contamination or surface water eutrophication. Clarifying the rates, controlling factors and characteristics of nitrate leaching is the pre-requisite for proposing effective mitigation strategies. We investigated the effects of interactions among chemical N fertilizer, straw and manure applications on nitrogen leaching in an intensively managed calcareous Fluvo-aquic soil with winter wheat-summer maize cropping rotations on the North China Plain from October 2010 to September 2013 using ceramic suction cups and seepage water calculations based on a long-term field experiment. Annual nitrate leaching reached 38-60?kg?N ha-1 from conventional N managements, but declined by 32-71% due to optimum N, compost manure or municipal waste treatments, respectively. Nitrate leaching concentrated in the summer maize season, and fewer leaching events with high amounts are the characteristics of nitrate leaching in this region. Overuse of chemical N fertilizers, high net mineralization and nitrification, together with predominance of rainfall in the summer season with light soil texture are the main controlling factors responsible for the high nitrate leaching loss in this soil-crop-climatic system.

SUBMITTER: Huang T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5296732 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Nitrate leaching in a winter wheat-summer maize rotation on a calcareous soil as affected by nitrogen and straw management.

Huang Tao T Ju Xiaotang X Yang Hao H

Scientific reports 20170208

Nitrate leaching is one of the most important pathways of nitrogen (N) loss which leads to groundwater contamination or surface water eutrophication. Clarifying the rates, controlling factors and characteristics of nitrate leaching is the pre-requisite for proposing effective mitigation strategies. We investigated the effects of interactions among chemical N fertilizer, straw and manure applications on nitrogen leaching in an intensively managed calcareous Fluvo-aquic soil with winter wheat-summ ...[more]

PMID: 28176865

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Project description:Mulching and nitrogen are critical drivers of crop production for smallholders of the Loess Plateau in China. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of mulching and nitrogen fertilizer on the soil water content, soil nitrate-N content and vertical distribution in maize root-zone. The experiment was conducted over two consecutive years and used randomly assigned field plots with three replicates. The six treatments consisted of no fertilizer without plastic film (CK), plastic film mulching with no basal fertilizer and no top dressing (MN0), basal fertilizer with no top dressing and no mulching (BN1), plastic film mulching and basal fertilizer with no top dressing (MN1), basal fertilizer and top dressing with no mulching (BN2) and plastic film mulching with basal fertilizer and top dressing (MN2). In the top soil layers, the soil water content was a little high in the plastic film mulching than that without mulching. The mean soil water content from 0 to 40 cm without mulching were 3.35% lower than those measured in the corresponding mulching treatments in 31 days after sowing in 2012. The mulching treatment increased the soil nitrate-N content was observed in the 0-40-cm soil layers. The results indicate that high contents of soil nitrate-N were mainly distributed at 0-20-cm at 31 days after sowing in 2012, and the soil nitrate-N concentration in the MN2 treatment was 1.58 times higher than that did not receive fertilizer. The MN2 treatment greatly increased the soil nitrate-N content in the upper layer of soil (0-40-cm), and the mean soil nitrate-N content was increased nearly 50 mg kg-1 at 105 days after sowing compared with CK treatment in 2012. The soil nitrate-N leaching amount in MN1 treatment was 28.61% and 39.14% lower than BN1 treatment, and the mulch effect attained to 42.55% and 65.27% in MN2 lower than BN2 in both years. The yield increased with an increase in the basal fertilizer, top dressing and plastic film mulching, and the grain yield increase ranged from 31.41% to 83.61% in two consecutive years. The MN1 and MN2 treatment is recommended because it increased the grain yield and improved the fertilizer use efficiency, compared with the no-mulching treatment.

Project description:Spatial variation of soil respiration (Rs) in cropland ecosystems must be assessed to evaluate the global terrestrial carbon budget. This study aims to explore the spatial characteristics and controlling factors of Rs in a cropland under winter wheat and summer maize rotation in the North China Plain. We collected Rs data from 23 sample plots in the cropland. At the late jointing stage, the daily mean Rs of summer maize (4.74 ?mol CO2 m-2 s-1) was significantly higher than that of winter wheat (3.77?mol CO2 m-2 s-1). However, the spatial variation of Rs in summer maize (coefficient of variation, CV = 12.2%) was lower than that in winter wheat (CV = 18.5%). A similar trend in CV was also observed for environmental factors but not for biotic factors, such as leaf area index, aboveground biomass, and canopy chlorophyll content. Pearson's correlation analyses based on the sampling data revealed that the spatial variation of Rs was poorly explained by the spatial variations of biotic factors, environmental factors, or soil properties alone for winter wheat and summer maize. The similarly non-significant relationship was observed between Rs and the enhanced vegetation index (EVI), which was used as surrogate for plant photosynthesis. EVI was better correlated with field-measured leaf area index than the normalized difference vegetation index and red edge chlorophyll index. All the data from the 23 sample plots were categorized into three clusters based on the cluster analysis of soil carbon/nitrogen and soil organic carbon content. An apparent improvement was observed in the relationship between Rs and EVI in each cluster for both winter wheat and summer maize. The spatial variation of Rs in the cropland under winter wheat and summer maize rotation could be attributed to the differences in spatial variations of soil properties and biotic factors. The results indicate that applying cluster analysis to minimize differences in soil properties among different clusters can improve the role of remote sensing data as a proxy of plant photosynthesis in semi-empirical Rs models and benefit the acquisition of Rs in cropland ecosystems at large scales.

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Dataset Information

Nitrate leaching in a winter wheat-summer maize rotation on a calcareous soil as affected by nitrogen and straw management.

Publications

Nitrate leaching in a winter wheat-summer maize rotation on a calcareous soil as affected by nitrogen and straw management.

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