Division of Agronomy, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India.
Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India.
PLoS One. 2023 Jul 5;18(7):e0284009. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284009. eCollection 2023.
One of the biggest challenges to be addressed in world agriculture is low nitrogen (N) use efficiency (<40%). To address this issue, researchers have repeatedly underlined the need for greater emphasis on the development and promotion of energy efficient, and environmentally sound novel fertilizers, in addition to improved agronomic management to augment nutrient use efficiency for restoring soil fertility and increasing farm profit. Hence, a fixed plot field experiment was conducted to assess the economic and environmental competency of conventional fertilizers with and without nano-urea (novel fertilizer) in two predominant cropping systems viz., maize-wheat and pearl millet-mustard under semi-arid regions of India. Result indicates that the supply of 75% recommended N with conventional fertilizer along with nano-urea spray (N75PK+nano-urea) reduced the energy requirement by ~8-11% and increased energy use efficiency by ~6-9% over 100% nitrogen through prilled urea fertilizer (business as usual). Furthermore, the application of N75PK+ nano-urea exhibited ~14% higher economic yields in all the crops compared with N50PK+ nano-urea. Application of N75PK+nano-urea registered comparable soil N and dehydrogenase activities (35.8 μg TPF g-1 24 hrs-1 across all crops) over the conventional fertilization (N100PK). This indicates that application of foliar spray of nano-urea with 75% N is a soil supportive production approach. More interestingly, two foliar sprays of nano-urea curtailed nitrogen load by 25% without any yield penalty, besides reducing the greenhouse gases (GHG) emission from 164.2 to 416.5 kg CO2-eq ha-1 under different crops. Therefore, the application of nano-urea along with 75% N through prilled urea is an energy efficient, environmentally robust and economically feasible nutrient management approach for sustainable crop production.
世界农业需要解决的最大挑战之一是低氮（N）利用率（<40%）。为了解决这个问题，研究人员反复强调需要更加重视开发和推广节能、环保的新型肥料，以及改善农业管理，以提高养分利用率，恢复土壤肥力并增加农场利润。因此，在印度半干旱地区的两种主要种植制度（玉米-小麦和珍珠粟-芥菜）下，进行了一项固定小区田间试验，以评估常规肥料与添加纳米尿素（新型肥料）的经济和环境竞争力。结果表明，与通过粒状尿素肥料（常规施肥）施 100%氮相比，用常规肥料加纳米尿素喷雾（N75PK+nano-urea）供应 75%的推荐氮量可将能源需求减少约 8-11%，并将能源利用率提高约 6-9%。此外，与 N50PK+nano-urea 相比，所有作物中应用 N75PK+ nano-urea 可使经济产量提高约 14%。与常规施肥（N100PK）相比，应用 N75PK+nano-urea 在所有作物中均记录到可比的土壤 N 和脱氢酶活性（35.8 μg TPF g-1 24 hrs-1）。这表明，用 75%的 N 喷施叶面纳米尿素是一种支持土壤生产的方法。更有趣的是，两次喷施叶面纳米尿素可减少 25%的氮负荷，而不会造成产量损失，此外，还可将不同作物下的温室气体（GHG）排放量从 164.2 减少到 416.5 kg CO2-eq ha-1。因此，用粒状尿素施加 75%的 N 与纳米尿素一起是一种节能、环保且经济可行的养分管理方法，可用于可持续作物生产。
