Nutrient Management and Balanced Fertilization on Major Crops in Jilin Province

The project has been focusing on Nutrient Expert based fertilizer recommendation since 2011

IPNI-2006-CHN-JL7

21 Mar 2014

2013 Annual Interpretive Summary


This study was conducted to validate Nutrient Expert® (NE)-based fertilizer recommendation for spring maize in farmer fields and compare them with farmer fertilizer practice (FFP). For this project, 15 on-farm experiments were conducted in three different counties in Gongzhuling, Jilin Province. Nutrient Expert®-based fertilizer recommendation plots received an average of 156-82-94 kg N-P2O5-K2O/ha, while FFP plots received 243-119-94 kg N-P2O5-K2O/ha, respectively.

Results in 2013 showed that grain yield (11.1 t/ha) and profit (US$3,592/ha) obtained in NE-based treatment were similar to those obtained in the FFP treatment (10.7 t/ha and US$3,316/ha). However, a significantly higher agronomic efficiency of N (17.3 kg/kg) and partial factor productivity of N (70.5 kg/kg) were obtained using NE-based fertilizer recommendations than when using FFP, where the corresponding values were 9.3 and 43.6 kg/kg, respectively. Also, 35.8% less fertilizer N was used in the NE-based treatment than that used in the FFP. The results of this study demonstrated the potential of NE as a viable alternative to soil testing for making improved fertilizer recommendations.