Abstract
Rates of denitrification measured over a growing season, both within and between rows of plants, in grass and lucerne leys and in barley plots were related to soil moisture and nitrate levels using bivariate, nonlinear regression models. Both within and between rows in all three crops, moisture explained a significant fraction of the variation in denitrification rates when the rates were regressed as increasing exponentially with increasing soil water content under moist conditions. Only soil moisture explained a significant fraction of the variation of the denitrification rates measured in the soil cores taken in (19.5%) and between (46.3%) plant rows at the barley field and in (42.4%) the plant rows in the lucerne ley. In some treatments, the rates appeared to be unrelated to moisture below a critical moisture threshold.
Nitrate proved to be a useful variable in predicting denitrification rates in the grass ley and between lucerne rows. Water and nitrate could explained 36.6% of the within-row variation and 24.2% of the between-row variation in the grass ley and 65% of the between-row sum of squares.
An attempt to use the regression model based on data from one year for the grass ley to predict the losses during another year for the same crop was not successful.
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Klemedtsson, L., Simkins, S., Svensson, B.H. et al. Soil denitrification in three cropping systems characterized by differences in nitrogen and carbon supply. Plant Soil 138, 273–286 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00012254
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00012254