Fertilizer nitrogen recovery efficiencies in crop production systems of China with and without consideration of the residual effect of nitrogen

Abstract

China is the world's largest consumer of synthetic nitrogen (N), where very low rates of fertilizer N recovery in crops have been reported, raising discussion around whether fertilizer N use can be significantly reduced without yield penalties. However, using recovery rates as indicator ignores a possible residual effect of fertilizer N - a factor often unknown at large scales. Such residual effect might store N in the soil increasing N availability for subsequent crops. The objectives of the present study were therefore to quantify the residual effect of fertilizer N in China and to obtain more realistic rates of the accumulative fertilizer N recovery efficiency (RE) in crop production syst..