Nutrient Management Strategies for Sichuan

The monitored village at Chongzhou County of Sichuan Province continued to study nutrient management and crop responses in its wheat-rice system. This is the seventh and final year of this project.

The results showed that N was still most limiting for wheat and rice. Wheat yield of the N omission plot dropped to only 55% of the optimal treatment. However, the reduction in wheat yield was minor with the omission of P (-184 kg/ha, or -4%) and K (-367 kg/ha, or -7%). Addition of Mn along with the optimal treatment further increased wheat yield by 4%. Similar to wheat, rice yields were also most affected by N omission (-2.3 t/ha, or -35%) and were less impacted by K (450 kg/ha, or -7%) or P omission (350 kg/ha, or -5%).

The results generated from the long-term experiment indicate that crop yields are most significantly affected by weather and nutrient management. Balanced fertilization is crucial to maintain high crop yield and nutrient use efficiency. Sichuan-NMS-01