Abstract
Background
Nitrogen (N) is an essential plant nutrient that limits growth in most terrestrial ecosystems, and to compensate for this, biochar (BC) is often utilized to reduce soil N losses and thus improve yields. However, optimizing root morphology with BC to help reduce N fertilization use and achieve consistent yields has not been widely investigated.
Methods
To address this, a two-year wheat field experiment was conducted in the drylands of the Loess Plateau in China. BC was applied at 0, 10, 20, and 30 t ha− 1 (BC0, BC10, BC20, and BC30, respectively) along with two N fertilization treatments (90 and 120 kg N ha− 1; N90 and N120, respectively).
Results
The results showed that BC promoted root growth in 2017–2018 (normal year) and reduced excessive root growth in 2018–2019 (wet year). The root strategy that resulted from the BC treatments reduced the variation in mineral nitrogen storage (ΔMNS) in the soil profile, thus supporting the efficient use of water and N for higher yields and partial factor productivity of N (PFPN), especially with the N120BC20 treatment. Furthermore, the PFPN was higher with the N90BC20 treatment than with the N120BC20 treatment, but there was no significant difference in yield. These results thus indicate that BC can compensate for the yield reduction caused by reduced N fertilizer use.
Conclusions
Our study provides different insights into potential strategies to reduce N applications in semiarid farmland and other rain-fed cropping regions using a BC-optimized root system strategy.
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Data Availability
Data will be made available on request.
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Acknowledgements
This research was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFD1900700), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41671307; 51279197), the Natural Science Basic Research Plan in Shaanxi Province of China (2022JM-103) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2452022377). The authors would like to thank the reviewers and editor for their constructive comments during the revisions of this manuscript.
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Xiaozhen Zhu presented the main idea and finished the initial draft. Yufang Shen and Linchuan Fang extensively modified the whole manuscript. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Suozhi Wu, Li Chen, Shushang Bao, and Xueqin Kong. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Zhu, X., Chen, L., Kong, X. et al. Biochar alters the morphology of plant roots to enable optimized and reduced nitrogen fertilizer applications. Plant Soil 492, 655–673 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06154-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-06154-9