An Integrated Nitrogen Management Strategy Promotes Open-Field Pepper Yield, Crop Nitrogen Uptake, and Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Southwest China

作者：Xiao Ma, Fen Zhang, Fabo Liu, Guangzheng Guo, Taihong Cheng, Junjie Wang, Yuanpeng Shen, Tao Liang, Xinping Chen, Xiaozhong Wang · 发表于：Agriculture · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.3390/agriculture12040524 · 被引用次数：17 · 研究领域：Plant nutrient uptake and metabolism、Irrigation Practices and Water Management、Crop Yield and Soil Fertility

Excessive nitrogen (N) fertilizer application is a serious issue in intensive vegetable production and can negatively affect vegetable productivity and N use efficiency (NUE). The optimization of the N fertilizer rate and application of enhanced efficiency N fertilizers (EENFs), including nitrification inhibitors (Nis) and controlled-release fertilizer (CRF), are widely recognized as feasible N management strategies to resolve the problem of unreasonable N fertilizer input. Therefore, we conducted a 2-year field experiment (2019–2020) in an open-field vegetable system (pepper, Capsicum annuum L.) in southwest China to investigate the effects of an optimized N application rate and EENFs on vegetable yield, NUE, and crop N uptake. The following N management treatments were established: control without N fertilizer input (CK); optimized N fertilizer rate as urea (OPT); farmers’ fertilizer practice (FP); application of a nitrification inhibitor (NI) within the optimized N fertilizer rate; and application of controlled-release fertilizer (CRF) within the optimized N fertilizer rate. The results showed that the OPT treatment based on root zone N management achieved a 37.5% reduction in the N application rate without compromising vegetable yield and increased the recovery efficiency of N (REN) by 31.5% compared to the FP treatment. Furthermore, the combined application of the NI or CRF treatments with the OPT treatment resulted in greater vegetable yields, fruit N uptake, and REN (9...