Nutrient Management and Optimized Fertilization on Wheat and Maize in Shanxi Province

The project has been focusing on Nutrient Expert based fertilizer recommendation since 2010

IPNI-2006-CHN-SX4

02 Feb 2007

2006 Annual Interpretive Summary

Soil Nutrient Management and Balanced Fertilization for Selected Crops in Shanxi, 2006

Survey data from two villages of Shanxi Province indicate that nutrient imbalance is a large problem interfering with the improvement of farmers’ yields and incomes. The objective of this work was to monitor yield responses to balanced fertilization (BF) strategies in selected crops. A long-term field experiment initiated in Linfen (calcic cinnamon soil) in 1993 continues to show the advantages to annual application of 150 kg K2O/ha plus 198 kg N/ha and 86 kg P2O5/ha, which is integrated with the practice of recycling available wheat straw. This treatment produced the highest wheat yield of 7.3 t/ha, which was 19% higher than the zero K and zero straw check.

Another wheat field experiment in Linfen determined the balanced optimum (OPT) to be 180-150-200 kg N-P2O5-K2O/ha plus 15 kg zinc (Zn)/ha. This OPT produced a high yield of 7.3 t/ha. Yields under treatments omitting N, P or K were 29%, 7% and 7% less than OPT, respectively. In the successive summer maize trial, application of 195 kg N/ha to each treatment resulted in a highest yield (6.1 t/ha) and profit (US$884/ha) under the OPT. The treatments which omitted N, P, and K had maize yields which were 63%, 91%, and 95% lower, respectively. Shanxi-NMBF