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Nitrogen Requirements for Flue‐Cured Tobacco
Author(s) -
Marchetti Rosa,
Castelli Fabio,
Contillo Renato
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
agronomy journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.752
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1435-0645
pISSN - 0002-1962
DOI - 10.2134/agronj2005.0105
Subject(s) - curing of tobacco , fertilizer , loam , agronomy , crop , nitrogen , nicotiana tabacum , growing season , environmental science , soil water , mathematics , chemistry , biology , soil science , biochemistry , organic chemistry , gene
Fertilizer N excesses may have negative effects on both crop and water quality. To reduce the risk of N excesses it is essential to accurately define fertilizer N rates. The estimate of the most suitable N rate is complicated by the fact that a certain amount of the N taken up by the crop during the growth season is supplied by the soil. The aim of this work was to estimate the amount of N that can become available for plant uptake during the crop growth season. The effects of five N rates (0, 20, 40, 60, and 80 kg N ha −1 ) on production traits of flue‐cured tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum L.) cv. K326, and on selected items of an N balance applied to the soil–plant system were studied on a loam soil, in 1998 and 1999, at Bovolone (Verona, northern Italy). The fertilizer N rate positively and significantly influenced cured‐leaf yields only in 1999, whereas the time to harvest increased linearly for increasing N rates, in both years (0.25 d on average for every further kg of fertilizer N). The N balance indicated a remarkable reduction of the soil organic N stock and an increase of the soil inorganic N levels throughout the crop growth period. As these changes were both proportional to the fertilizer N rate, the occurrence of a positive priming effect was hypothesized. The formulation of N fertilizer recommendations to farmers should take into account the existence of priming effect phenomena.