Abstract
Agricultural tillage practices and fertilizer play an important role in production and consumption of greenhouse gases (GHGs), which contribute to global climate change. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a major GHG with high global warming potential produced by agricultural systems. This study assessed the yield and N2O emission from rice cropping system under conventional tillage (CT) and reduced tillage (RT) farming systems and four levels of nitrogenous fertilizer i.e. zero nitrogen or fertilizer level 1 (F1), 30 kg-N ha –1 or fertilizer level 2 (F2), 40 kg-N ha–1 or fertilizer level 3 (F3), and 50 kg-N ha–1 or fertilizer level 4 (F4). N2O emission was measured by static chamber technique. Both the tillage practices and fertilizer significantly (p < 0.05) affected the N2O emissions and an average RT practice increased the N2O emission by 9.77% over CT practice. The 25% reduction in fertilizer rate (30 kg N ha–1) over normal rate (40 kg N ha–1) decreased the cumulative emission by 6.90% in CT and 7.59% in RT. The nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) decreased with increasing nitrogen levels and treatmentF2 in both CT and RT with 30 kg N ha–1 increased the NUE and yield, thus leading to the lowest yield-scaled N2O–N emission. The 25% reduction in fertilizer rate or efficient use of applied nitrogen fertilizer in CT plots may be considered an effective and environment-friendly strategy to mitigate climate change through minimizing N2O emissions with optimum productivity.
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All the authors are grateful to the Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship, Government of India and Tezpur University, Tezpur, India for facilitating and supporting the research activities.
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Baruah, K.K., Kumar, R. & Bordoloi, N. Identification of optimal level of nitrogen fertilizer and tillage practice to reduce nitrous oxide emissions and maximize the nitrogen use efficiency and productivity from tropical rice paddy. Paddy Water Environ 20, 483–497 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-022-00906-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-022-00906-6