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Fertilizer Nitrogen and Corn Plants: Not all Volatilized Ammonia is Lost
Author(s) -
Schoninger Evandro Luiz,
GonzálezVillalba Hugo Abelardo,
Bendassolli José Albertino,
Ocheuze Trivelin Paulo Cesar
Publication year - 2018
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/agronj2017.07.0372
Subject(s) - urea , nitrogen , ammonia , fertilizer , agronomy , zea mays , chemistry , growing season , ammonia volatilization from urea , field experiment , zoology , horticulture , biology , organic chemistry
Core Ideas Corn plants absorb volatilized ammonia from urea. Foliar area controls ammonia absorption. Not all N‐fertilizer emitted as ammonia can be considered lost.Plants can absorb NH 3 from the atmosphere through the foliage, potentially recovering part of the volatilized N from N fertilizers. To measure the extent of corn ( Zea mays L.) foliar uptake of NH 3 derived from surface applied urea at different growth stages and study the relationship between the amount of NH 3 uptake and corn leaf area, a field experiment was set up during the 2011–2012 and the 2012–2013 growing seasons. The experiment was developed in a complete randomized blocks design with four replications. Treatments consisted of five sidedress N application times (growth stages V4, V6, V8, V10, and V12) using 15 N‐labeled urea. The percentage of volatilized N (VN), the percentage of volatilized N recovered by the plant (PVNP), and the leaf area (LA) at each N application time were evaluated. Using the tray method, the VN varied from 23 to 68% of the total N applied, given these differences mainly related to climatic conditions (i.e., rainfall occurrence). On average for the two growing seasons, measured PVNP values were 3.4, 5.5, 6.2, 9.0, and 14.8% at V4, V6, V8, V10, and V12 growth stages, respectively. Approximately 90% of the total N uptake ( 15 NH 3 , by the foliage) was allocated in the leaves and 10% in the stem. We found a high correlation between LA and PVNP ( r 2 = 0.92, p ≤ 0.05). Furthermore, corn plants can take up part of the surface applied fertilizer‐derived (urea) NH 3 , up to values of 15% of the volatilized N–NH 3 .