ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Nutrition
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1576049
Optimizing Controlled-Release Urea and Urea Combinations for Sustainable Rice-Wheat Production under Nitrogen Reduction
Provisionally accepted
- Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China
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Excessive nitrogen fertilization poses a threat to agricultural sustainability.Achieving high crop yield while improving soil health under reduced nitrogen (N) input is a global concern. This two-year rice-wheat rotation study was designed with two N fertilizer levels (conventional N level and reduced N level) and four controlled-release urea (CRU) application modes, along with a control CK (farmer's conventional fertilization mode). Effects on yield, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), and soil fertility were compared. Polymer-coated urea (PCU) was employed as the CRU material in this study. Significantly lower annual yields were observed under sole PCU. The PCU + U treatments increased yields by 9.16-15.00% over CK. The highest rice-wheat yield and nitrogen recovery efficiency occurred with 40% PCU + 30% U basal fertilizer + 30% U panicle fertilizer application mode. Nitrogen reduction decreased yield and plant nitrogen but improved nitrogen recovery efficiency. However, the RN-PCU + U mode achieved yields comparable to CK. RN-PCU + U treatments provided stable yields and higher economic benefits, with the latter increasing by 6.3-35.7% compared to CK. Soil nutrient content varied significantly among PCU application modes. The RN 70% PCU + 30% U basal fertilizer showed the best performance on soil fertility: organic matter content was 2.9% higher than CK, and total nitrogen was 9.3% higher than CK after two rice-wheat rotations. Panicle fertilizer enhanced nutrient uptake and reduced residual soil nutrient levels. Correlation analysis indicated that increased plant N and soil available phosphorus were associated with higher yields, whereas elevated soil alkali-hydrolyzed N content promoted organic matter accumulation. PCU + U application can compensate for the decrease of rice-wheat yield under nitrogen reduction and improve the activity of soil nutrients. Our results suggest that the 70% PCU + 30% U basal application mode optimizes nitrogen efficiency, sustains ricewheat yields, and enhances soil fertility under reduced nitrogen input. These findings could inform future sustainable agricultural practices designed to reduce nitrogen use while maintaining crop yield.
Keywords: controlled-release nitrogen fertilizer mode, Nitrogen reduction, ricewheat yield, nitrogen use efficiency, soil fertility, sustainable fertilization strategies
Received: 14 Feb 2025; Accepted: 09 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tao, Zhang, Xing, Ni, Ye and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zujian Zhang, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China
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