Soil and fertiliser nitrogen performance indicators for irrigated cotton in Australia
John Smith
A B C * , Shu Fukai C and Michael Bell B C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A AgriFutures Australia, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2650, Australia.
B Centre for Plant Science, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, Australia.
C School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, University of Queensland, Gatton, Qld, Australia.
Soil Research 61(4) 329-344 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR21323
Submitted: 24 December 2021 Accepted: 29 October 2022 Published: 6 December 2022
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Context: Current cotton industry nitrogen (N) performance indicators have been developed in a narrow geographic region and do not represent production in southern Queensland (SQld) and southern New South Wales (SNSW), Australia.
Aims: To benchmark soil and fertiliser N use efficiency (NUE) in irrigated cotton crops in these production areas, and to determine whether the current industry benchmarks are relevant in these regions.
Methods: Eight field experiments were conducted over three growing seasons on commercial farms in SQld and SNSW. Experiments applied rates of urea-N to fields using surface or overhead irrigation.
Key results: The industry partial factor productivity for N and internal N use efficiency (iNUE) benchmarks were not suitable NUE targets for these experiments because of variations in soil types, background soil N and other constraints to crop yield. Crops grown with soil N alone accumulated crop N and lint yield at 75% and 79% of crops producing 95% of site maximum lint yield (Y95). At fertiliser rates producing Y95, apparent N budgeting indicated only 25–30% of the potentially available soil and fertiliser N was present in crop biomass and soil mineral N at the end of season.
Conclusions: Improving fertiliser N efficiency in irrigated cotton will require an understanding of site-specific factors that influence N availability, crop N demand and the ability of the crop to produce lint from N accumulated in biomass.
Implications: Further research is required to develop the understanding of regional factors that influence crop N performance for the industry to improve its NUE.
Keywords: agronomic efficiency, cotton, fertiliser nitrogen uptake efficiency, internal nitrogen use efficiency, nitrogen, nitrogen fertiliser, nitrogen use efficiency, soil nitrogen uptake efficiency.
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