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
26 Feb 2010
2009 Annual Interpretive Summary
Nutrient Management for Summer Maize in Shanxi, 2009
Intensification of agricultural production with poor nutrient management practices has decreased N use efficiency and increased environmental pollution in Northcentral China. Work in 2009 optimized nutrient management in summer maize for increased yield and fertilizer use efficiency in Shanxi. A field experiment conducted in Linfen tested five treatments including: a balanced ‘optimum’ (OPT) nutrient application of 210-90-60 kg N-P2O5-K2O/ha based on soil testing and a target yield, farmers’ practice (FP) of 276-0-0 kg N-P2O5-K2O/ha, and an OPT-N, OPT-P, and OPT-K.
The OPT was only able to produce 3.7% more grain yield than the FP. The N, P, and K omission plots produced 17.3%, 8.1%, and 4.2% less than the OPT, respectively, indicating that N was the first nutrient limiting factor for yield. The OPT did have better N use efficiency than the FP. Recovery efficiencies were 42.7% vs. 35.9% (OPT vs. FP), agronomic efficiencies were (10.1 vs. 6.4 kg grain increase/kg N), and partial factor productivities were 47.1 vs. 34.6 kg grain yield/kg N.
Since the OPT tested in this study generated only marginal yield increases, there remains considerable potential to improve N use efficiency further for summer maize. Shanxi-NMBF