Nitrogen Dynamics in Tropical Soils Treated with Liquid and Granular Urea Fertilizers

Ahmmed Md Motasim, Abd Wahid Samsuri, Arina Shairah Abdul Sukor and Amin Mohd Adibah
Additional contact information
Ahmmed Md Motasim: Department of Land Management, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Abd Wahid Samsuri: Department of Land Management, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Arina Shairah Abdul Sukor: Department of Land Management, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Amin Mohd Adibah: Department of Land Management, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-12

Abstract: The mineralization of urea fertilizer mostly regulates the nitrogen dynamics in the soil. A laboratory-scale study was conducted to compare the nitrogen dynamics in two tropical soil series incubated with either liquid urea (LU) or granular urea (GU) at 0, 300, 400 or 500 mg/kg of soil. The soils samples used in the experiment were the Bungor and Selangor soil series which have a sandy clay loam and clay texture, respectively. The NH 4 + -N, NO 3 − -N concentration in the soils were measured for four weeks to determine the urea-N mineralization while ten pore volumes of water were used for the NH 4 + -N and NO 3 − -N leaching loss. At the same application rate, higher NH 4 + -N and NO 3 − -N concentrations were recorded in the LU applied soils throughout the incubation period in case of N mineralization. Urea-N recovery was higher in GU than LU treated soils in the first two weeks while no urea-N was present in both GU and LU treated soils after the third week of incubation. The leaching of N (NH 4 + -N and NO 3 − -N) was higher in GU treated soils than that of LU and leaching was increased with increased application rate in both LU and GU in both soils. The NH 4 + -N and NO 3 − -N concentrations were higher in the Selangor soil whereas the total N leaching loss was higher in Bungor soil. The results suggest that the LU was a better N fertilizer source than GU for rapid mineralization, quicker N availability and lower N leaching loss.

Keywords: NH 4 + -N; NO 3 − -N; liquid urea; N mineralization; N leaching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/6/546/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/6/546/ (text/html)

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:gam:jagris:v:11:y:2021:i:6:p:546-:d:574545

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().