Evaluating the Efficacy of Enhanced Efficiency Nitrogen Fertilizers under Different Moisture Regime
Research was funded by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (Land and Water Stewardship Programs)
Nutifafa Adotey, Assistant Professor and Soil and Nutrient Specialist, Samuel Okai, Graduate Students, Xinhua (Frank) Yin, Professor & Cropping System Scientist, Daniel Yoder, Professor, Lori Duncan, Assistant Professor and Row Crop Sustainability Specialist, Debasish Saha, Assistant Professor and Soil Scientist
Introduction
Enhanced efficiency nitrogen fertilizer (EENF), recognized as a promising N management tool, reduces N loss, optimizes N uptake, improves crop productivity, maximizes profits, and reduces environmental pollution across various cropping systems. Soil properties such as soil pH and soil moisture, among other factors can limit the effectiveness of EENF on ammonia volatilization
Materials and Method
A completely randomized design with four replicates will be used to evaluate ammonia volatilization of six EENF products at three moisture regimes. The EENF product includes ANVOLTM-Urea, Nzone Max-urea, ANVOLTM-UAN, ESN®. The moisture conditions include moist, saturated, and flooded. The experiment will be repeated three times under similar environmental conditions in order to evaluate all six EENF. To initiate the volatility study, the glass chambers will be filled with 500 g of air‐dried soil and moistened to two‐thirds field capacity of each soil. The moistened soil is then incubated at a constant temperature of 26°C for 48 h prior to the start of the experiment. At the end of incubation, the EENF products will be surface applied at an equivalent rate of 120 lbs. N a–1 based on the exposed soil surface area within the glass chambers. Ammonia from EENF products and soil will be captured in 100 mL of 0.02 M orthophosphoric acid.
Results and Discussion
Experiments are on-going.
