Nutrient Management and Optimized Fertilization on Maize in Heilongjiang Province

Nutrient Expert^(R) (NE) is a computer-based decision support tool developed to assist local experts to formulate fertilizer recommendations for maize. It is based on yield response and agronomic efficiency (AE) and is especially useful when soil testing is not available or timely. This study was continued in 2014 to validate NE-based fertilizer recommendations for spring maize in farmer fields and compare them with farmer fertilizer practice (FP). For this project, there were 12 field validation experiments for NE conducted in Heilongjiang. Each individual site had a site-specific recommendation, the NE-based plots received 178 kg N, 82 kg P₂O₅ and 81 kg K₂O/ha on average, while the FP plots received an average of 172 kg N, 65 kg P₂O₅ and 53 K₂O/ha.

The results showed that NE treatment had higher grain yield (11.5 t/ha) than the FP treatment (10.6 t/ha). The NE treatment also generated more profit (352 yuan/ha) compared to FP treatment. Slightly higher AE and partial factor productivity (PFP) values under NE (18.9 kg/kg and 33.8 kg/kg) were observed when compared to the FP treatment (15.8 kg/kg and 28.3 kg/kg).