Elsevier

Pedosphere

Volume 32, Issue 1, February 2022, Pages 39-48
Pedosphere

Effects of different continuous fertilizer managements on soil total nitrogen stocks in China: A meta-analysis

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1002-0160(21)60059-0Get rights and content

ABSTRACT

Soil total nitrogen is critical for crop productivity and related to agricultural managements. However, the effects of different fertilizer applications on soil total nitrogen storage are not well understood. To quantify soil total nitrogen storage under different fertilizer management practices and explore the effects of climate, soil texture, experimental duration, and cropping system on soil total nitrogen storage in China, we conducted a meta-analysis of 67 fertilizer management strategies from experiments conducted over a period of at least three years. This meta-analysis included 854 observations of changes in soil total nitrogen stock (TNS) under no fertilizer application (control, CK), chemical fertilization with nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (CF), CF plus straw retention (CFS), and CF plus manure addition (CFM) relative to initial soil TNS. The CFM and CFS treatments increased soil TNS, and the CFM treatments increased soil C/N ratio the most. The longer the experimental duration, the greater the increase in soil TNS in the CF, CFS, and CFM treatments. Soil texture and crop type significantly affected the changes in soil TNS. The experimental duration, initial soil TNS, soil C/N ratio, and cropping system had significant linear correlations with the change in soil TNS. Temperature and precipitation were not correlated with soil TNS. Results of random forest modeling indicated that the most important factor affecting changes in soil TNS was experimental duration (positive correlation), followed by initial soil TNS (negative correlation). The CFM treatments had the largest increase in soil TNS under various conditions. We recommend promoting CFM to improve soil fertility in farmlands globally.

Section snippets

INTRODUCTION

Soil total nitrogen provides crops with sufficient nitrogen and promotes crop growth (Deng et al., 2020) by enhancing carbon uptake and stimulating crop photosynthesis (Vos et al., 2005). Soil organic nitrogen, which accounts for approximately 95% of soil total nitrogen (Ye et al., 2018), can be mineralized and subsequently absorbed by plants (Mooshammer et al., 2014). Soil nitrogen and carbon contents are important indicators of soil quality. It is well known that soil total nitrogen content

DATA COLLECTION AND DATA ANALYSIS

We searched Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/) and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (http://www.cnki.net/) for articles using key words related to soil total nitrogen, fertilizer types (chemical fertilizer or manure or straw), and long-term experiments. To minimize bias and compile a representative dataset, the studies selected had to fit the following criteria: i) initial and final soil total nitrogen contents or stock levels were reported with known years; ii) they were

Changes in soil TNS under different fertilization managements in relation to experimental duration

Relative to the initial TNS in soil, soil TNS after long-term fertilization managements significantly increased by 6.59%, 25.54%, 35.26%, and 47.51% on average in the CK, CF, CFS, and CFM treatments, respectively (Fig. 1a). The CFM and CFS treatments increased soil TNS for all three experimental durations. However, the CF treatments had no effect on soil TNS for the experimental duration of < 10 years, but increased it for the experimental durations of 10–20 years and > 20 years. In the CK

Changes in soil TNS under different fertilizer managements in relation to experimental duration

Total nitrogen is the core index of soil quality (Dalal et al., 2011), and substantial nitrogen sequestration is required to improve or maintain current soil TNS across all agroecosystems (Deng et al., 2020). We found that CFM and CFS changed soil TNS more compared to CF, with the highest increase detected under CFM (Fig. 1a, b), which is consistent with other studies (Hao et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2009; Gao et al., 2015; Li et al., 2018). It is likely that manure or straw addition improves

CONCLUSIONS

Experimental duration, initial soil TNS, soil texture, cropping system, and crop type significantly affected the changes in soil TNS after long-term different fertilization managements. Experimental duration was the most important factor affecting changes in soil TNS, followed by initial soil TNS. Changes in soil TNS after long-term fertilization managements were positively correlated with experimental duration, but negatively correlated with the initial TNS in soil. Soil TNS increased under

CONTRIBUTION OF AUTHORS

The first two authors contributed equally to this work.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

Supplementary material for this article can be found in the online version.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Financial support was provided by China Agriculture Research System of MOF and MARA (No. CARS-02-12) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31701384).

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