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Effects of fertilizer nitrogen on soil nitrogen availability after a grazed grass ley and on the response of the following cereal crops to fertilizer nitrogen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

J. Webb  and
R. Sylvester-Bradley
J. Webb
Affiliation:
ADAS, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P3JR, UK
R. Sylvester-Bradley
Affiliation:
ADAS Soil and Water Research Centre, Trumpington, Cambridge CB2 2LF, UK
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Summary

Nitrogen nutrition of two succeeding wheat crops was studied after ploughing of grassland in July 1987 on a clay soil at ADAS Drayton. The four plots of grassland had received 100, 250, 450 and 750 kg N/ha per year for 4 years from 1984 and were grazed by beef cattle at stocking densities which varied according to grass growth.

Determinations of soil mineral N taken to 60 cm every 3 weeks from July to the following May were particularly variable. However, in the first 2 years after ploughing the means of the series of mineral N measurements were directly proportional to the amounts of fertilizer N applied to the grass.

N offtake in winter wheat grain without fertilizer N was directly proportional to fertilizer N applied to grass but this had little effect on maximum grain yields. Large soil N supplies did not necessarily predispose the wheat crops to large grain N concentrations because fertilizer N caused grain N offtake to reach a similar maximum, irrespective of previous grass N.

Optimum amounts of fertilizer N for the wheat were 188, 147, 87 and nil kg/ha in 1988 and 152,130, 89 and 25 kg/ha in 1989 after 100, 250, 450 and 750 kg N/ha per year applied to the grass. Soil N supply as indicated by both the amount of fertilizer applied to grass and means of mineral N measurements accounted for almost all of this variation. Mean soil mineral N over winter was no better as an indicator of soil N supply than the amount of N applied to the grass. However, before adopting N applied to grass as a more general index of N supply, it would need to be adjusted for variation in N removed and lost during grass growth; these were controlled in this experiment.

Type
Crops and Soils
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 122 , Issue 3 , June 1994 , pp. 445 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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