Nitrogen supply – A determinant in water use efficiency of winter wheat grown under free air CO2 enrichment

Remy Manderscheid, Markus Dier, Martin Erbs, Jan Sickora and Hans-Joachim Weigel

Agricultural Water Management, 2018, vol. 210, issue C, 70-77

Abstract: Global warming and associated decrease of summer precipitation will intensify the limitation of crop growth through water unavailability in Europe. Concomitantly, the rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration ([CO2]) decreases stomatal conductance and thus transpiration as evident at the leaf level. However, knowledge about the effect of elevated [CO2] ([eCO2]) on seasonal water use of crops is rather poor. In a two year field study, winter wheat was grown under ambient [CO2] (393 ppm) and [eCO2] (600 ppm) using free air CO2 enrichment (FACE). In addition, subplots were established with three levels of nitrogen (N) supply (35, 190, 320 kg N ha−1). Soil moisture was continuously measured and wheat was irrigated when necessary to keep field capacity at between 50% to 90%. Evapotranspiration (ET) from stem elongation until maturity was calculated using a soil water balance approach. Water use efficiency (WUE) was determined from the ratio of aboveground biomass production and ET during this period.

Keywords: Climate change; Evaporation; Evapotranspiration; Free-Air CO2 enrichment (FACE); Nitrogen fertilization; Soil water content (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377418311259
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:210:y:2018:i:c:p:70-77

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2018.07.034

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().