Opportunities for improved fertilizer nitrogen management in production of arable crops in eastern Canada: A review

There is increasing public pressure to reduce the environmental impacts of agricultural production. Therefore, one key challenge to producers is to manage their crop production systems in order to minimize losses of nitrogen to air or water, while achieving crop yield and quality goals. Many strateg...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian journal of soil science 2009-02, Vol.89 (2), p.113-132
Main Authors: Zebarth, B.J, Drury, C.F, Tremblay, N, Cambouris, A.N
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
agricultural soils
application methods
application rate
arable soils
biogeochemical cycles
cover crops
cropping systems
decision support systems
environmental markets
environmental protection
fertilizer application
fertilizer rates
fertilizers
genetic improvement
irrigation management
leaching
literature reviews
mineralization
nitrogen
nutrient management
nutrient use efficiency
precision agriculture
soil analysis
spectral analysis
strategies
tillage
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Summary:There is increasing public pressure to reduce the environmental impacts of agricultural production. Therefore, one key challenge to producers is to manage their crop production systems in order to minimize losses of nitrogen to air or water, while achieving crop yield and quality goals. Many strategies have been developed in recent years to meet this challenge. These include: development of new tools to measure crop N status in order to refine in-season fertilizer N management, development of new soil N tests to improve prediction of soil N supply, development of new fertilizer N products with release patterns more closely matched to crop N uptake patterns, and development of site-specific N management strategies. We review the opportunities and limitations to these new strategies within different arable crop production systems under the humid and sub-humid soil moisture regimes present in eastern Canada. Future research opportunities to improve the efficiency of fertilizer N utilization include development of practical methods to predict the magnitude of soil N mineralization; refinement of decision-making processes which take into consideration the crop N status and soil properties as a basis for variable rate fertilizer N application; development of affordable controlled-release fertilizer N products with improved N release characteristics; development of practical methods for capturing and recycling nutrient-laden drainage water; development of gene expression profiling based techniques to identify crop N stress; and application of crop genomics and molecular breeding techniques to accelerate the development of new cultivars with increased N use efficiency. Key words: Soil N tests, plant N tests, nitrogen fertilizers, nitrogen cycling
ISSN:0008-4271
1918-1841
DOI:10.4141/CJSS07102