中国玉米小麦产量与氮肥利用效率同步提高的研究进展

Improving yield and nitrogen use efficiency simultaneously for maize and wheat in China: A review

Achieving both high yield and high nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) simultaneously has become a major challenge with increased global demand for food, depletion of natural resources, and deterioration of environment. As the greatest consumers of N fertilizer in the world, Chinese farmers have overused N and there has been poor synchrony between crop N demand and N supply because of limited understanding of the N uptake-yield relationship. To address this problem, this study evaluated the total and dynamic N requirement for different yield ranges of two major crops (maize and wheat), and suggested improvements to N management strategies. Whole-plant N aboveground uptake requirement per grain yield (N _req) initially deceased with grain yield improvement and then stagnated, and yet most farmers still believed that more fertilizer and higher grain yield were synonymous. When maize yield increased from < 7.5 to > 12.0 Mg ha^-1, Nreq decreased from 19.8 to 17.0 kg Mg^-1 grain. For wheat, it decreased from 27.1 kg Mg^-1 grain for grain yield < 4.5 Mg ha^-1 to 22.7 kg Mg^-1 grain for yield > 9.0 Mg ha^-1. Meanwhile, the percentage of dry matter and N accumulation in the middle-late growing season increased significantly with grain yield, which indicated that N fertilization should be concentrated in the middle-late stage to match crop demand while farmers often applied the majority of N fertilizer either before sowing or during early growth stages. We accordingly developed an integrated soil-crop system management strategy that simultaneously increases both grain yield and NUE.