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Increasing the Efficiency of Nitrogen Use: Assessing the Nitrogen-Mineralizing Capability of Soils

  • AGRICULTURAL SOIL SCIENCE AND AGROECOLOGY
  • Published:
Russian Agricultural Sciences Aims and scope

Abstract

Much attention is paid today to the issues of increasing the efficiency of nitrogen use since it is obvious that it is impossible to expect a significant increase in the production and use of nitrogen fertilizers in the near future. It is necessary to develop methods for calculating the doses of nitrogen fertilizers that are as close as possible to the needs of plants, primarily taking into account the actual mineralization of this element from soil organic matter. The purpose of the research is to develop a method for calculating the soil’s nitrogen-mineralizing capacity (NMC) for diagnosing the nitrogen regime of soils. During the implementation of the developed method for quantitative assessment of the nitrogen-mineralizing capacity of soils, NMC is calculated by composting soil samples under optimal conditions of temperature (18–28°C) and humidity (60% of preirrigation moisture threshold (PMT)) for 4 weeks with a set (four to six) of increasing doses of nitrogen fertilizers equivalent to those planned for various crops. The value of the nitrogen-mineralizing capacity of the soil is calculated by finding the first derivative of the quadratic regression equation, describing the accumulation of available nitrogen (nitrates and exchangeable ammonium) in the soil depending on the doses of fertilizers applied. This method was tested in various experiments both under experimental and production conditions in various soil-climatic zones and with different crops and showed that the discrepancies in the values of soil nitrogen use, calculated using the 15N label and the proposed method, do not exceed 10–12%, which is acceptable for diagnostic purposes. This value makes it possible to predict and model various aspects of nitrogen transformation in the soil and to evaluate the accumulation and dynamics of mobile mineral nitrogen compounds in the soil and the conversion of nitrogen in systems such as soil–fertilizer–plant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science, Russian Academy of Sciences, 142290, Pushchino, Moscow oblast, Russia

    V. N. Bashkin

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  1. V. N. Bashkin
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Correspondence to V. N. Bashkin.

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This article does not contain any studies involving animals performed by any of the authors.

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Translated by M. Shulskaya

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Bashkin, V.N. Increasing the Efficiency of Nitrogen Use: Assessing the Nitrogen-Mineralizing Capability of Soils. Russ. Agricult. Sci. 48, 283–289 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3103/S1068367422040012

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3103/S1068367422040012

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