Effects of a catch crop and reduced nitrogen fertilization on nitrogen leaching in greenhouse vegetable production systems |
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Authors: | Ju Min Weiming Shi Guangxi Xing Hailin Zhang and Zhaoliang Zhu |
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Affiliation: | (1) State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China;(2) Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA; |
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Abstract: | Greenhouse vegetable cultivation has greatly increased productivity but has also led to a rapid accumulation of nitrate in
soils and probably in plants. Significant losses of nitrate–nitrogen (NO3-N) could occur after heavy N fertilization under open-field conditions combined with high precipitation in the summer. It
is urgently needed to improve N management under the wide spread greenhouse vegetable production system. The objective of
this study was to evaluate the effects of a summer catch crop and reduced N application rates on N leaching and vegetable
crop yields. During a 2-year period, sweet corn as an N catch crop was planted between vegetable crops in the summer season
under 5 N fertilizer treatments (0, 348, 522, 696, and 870 kg ha−1) in greenhouse vegetable production systems in Tai Lake region, southern China. A water collection system was installed at
a depth of 0.5 m in the soil to collect leachates during the vegetable growing season. The sweet corn as a catch crop reduced
the total N concentration from 94 to 59 mg l−1 in leached water and reduced the average soil nitrate N from 306 to 195 mg kg−1 in the top 0.1-m soil during the fallow period of local farmers’ N application rate (870 kg ha−1). Reducing the amount of N fertilizer and using catch crop during summer fallow season reduced total N leaching loss by 50
and 73%, respectively, without any negative effect on vegetable yields. |
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