Abstract
An experiment was conducted to study nitrogen absorption and translocation in grain sorghum plants during their reproductive growth. Sorghum was grown in four row spacings: 50 and 70 cm in single rows, 80 and 120cm in double rows 20 cm apart. Plant populations were 71000, 142000 and 213000 plants/ha. After flowering, samples were taken at 12 day intervals, and the plants were divided into grains and stover, where N was analyzed. There was an increase in N concentration in lower plant populations and in wider row spacings. However, total nitrogen accumulation (in kg/ha) increased as the number of plants was increased. In the vegetative parts of the plants there were higher N concentrations in lower populations showing that there was a higher N absorption and a lower translocation to the grains. When grain sorghum was grown in 50 cm rows, there was a high N accumulation, a high N translocation to the grains and the highest yield. This row spacing led to the highest N use efficiency.
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Rosolem, C.A., Kato, S.M., Machado, J.R. et al. Nitrogen redistribution to sorghum grains as affected by plant competition. Plant Soil 155, 199–202 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00025018
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00025018