ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Crop and Product Physiology
Nitrogen threshold under straw returning: optimizing nitrogen application to synergize the yield and nutritional stoichiometry of maize
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Jinan, China
- 2Taian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Taian, China
- 3Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Changchun, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Straw returning has the potential to reduce nitrogen (N) input by enhancing soil fertility; however, the optimal N application rate may vary under different crop residue management practices. Based on a long-term field experiment initiated in 2011, this study investigated the effects of two residue management methods, namely, no tillage with straw mulch (SM, full straw return) and plow tillage incorporating straw mulch to a depth of approximately 15 cm (SP, full straw return), in combination with five nitrogen application rates (0, 90, 150, 210, and 270 kg ha−1) on maize grain yield, nutritional quality, and the partial factor productivity of nitrogen fertilizer (PFPN). The results indicated that the 1000-kernel weight and kernel number under SP were 7.09% and 6.26% higher than those under SM, respectively, resulting in a 9.24% higher yield in SP. Furthermore, PFPN was significantly greater under SP, by 13.88% compared with SM. This difference was more evident when the N application rate was below 150 kg ha−1. Additionally, the comprehensive nutritional quality index (Q value), which integrates crude protein, crude fat, starch, and amino acid contents via the entropy weight method to avoid limitations of single-trait analysis, reached a higher linear plateau under SP than under SM, as SP enhanced the crude fat (by 6.68%) and starch (by 1.90%) contents in the grains. In conclusion, SP demonstrated greater potential for N fertilizer savings while achieving high grain yield and superior nutritional quality. The optimal N application rates were 113.82–129.53 kg ha−1 for SP and 129.90–135.81 kg ha−1 for SM, ensuring the coordinated improvement of yield, nutritional quality, and PFPN.
Keywords: No tillage with straw mulch (SM), Nutritional Stoichiometry, Partial Factor Productivity of Nitrogen (PFPN), Plow tillage with straw mulch (SP), Sustainable intensification
Received: 08 Dec 2025; Accepted: 10 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Zhang, Meng, Zhang, Liu and Lv. 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: Yanjie Lv
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.