Study and Application of Nutrient Management Expert System in a Summer Maize-Winter Wheat Rotation
IPNI China program is encouraging the use of crop nutrient management expert system in China, Since 2013, supported by IPNI China program, the project cooperators in the Soil and Fertilizer Institute, Anhui Academy of Agricultural Science carried out this project for use the system on maize in Anhui province.
IPNI-2013-CHN-AH20
25 Mar 2014
2013 Annual Interpretive Summary
Anhui Province is one of the most important maize-producing provinces in China with an annual planting area of 761 million ha in 2010. Some of the major issues regarding maize production in the region are low yield and poor nutrient management. In 2010, the average maize yield of Anhui was 4.1 t/ha, which was 24.7% lower than the average maize yield (5.4 t/ha) in the country. This project was started in 2013 to study and demonstrate the Nutrient Expert® (NE) in summer maize-winter wheat rotation in the province to improve farmer's nutrient management practices as well as maize yields. Six treatments, viz., OPT (optimum fertilization based on NE), OPT-N, OPT-P, OPT-K, FP (farmer practice), CK (no fertilization) were used for the study. The OPT treatment had 210-90-120 kg N-P2O5-K2O/ha.
Maize yields increased from 7.5 t/ha in the FP treatment to 8.35 t/ha in NE treatment (a 11% increase) along with an increase in net income by US$262/ha. At the same time, NE reduced the cost of N and P fertilizers by US$87/ha. Therefore, the NE system showed great potential for improving maize yields and farmer fertilization practices in this region.