Abstract
Purpose
A large amount of nitrogen (N) fertilizers has been broadcasted over soil surface for reliable crop production. Unfortunately, the broadcasted N vulnerable to volatilization and leaching can lead to serious environmental problems. As a new approach to mitigate N loss of broadcasted fertilizers, massive intercalation of urea into montmorillonite (MMT) was recently proposed to innovatively enhance the urea use efficiency. This study focuses on demonstrating the behaviors of the urea intercalated into MMT in soils.
Materials and methods
A eutectic Ca0.7/Mg0.3(urea)6Cl2 complex was intercalated into MMT at a weight ratio of complex/MMT of 1.0 (the resulting product was referred to as Ca/Mg-UCM). Behaviors of broadcasted urea were examined on both bare and planted soils. Soil urea-N, ammonium, and nitrate were analyzed using a spectrophotometer after extraction of the soil by 2 M KCl solution. Ammonia emitted from the soil was collected by a closed-dynamic air flow method, and NH3 concentration was determined by titration with a standard 0.005 M H2SO4. In particular, urea labeled with 5% 15N atom was used in evaluating N uptake. Emission of N2O was evaluated by collecting all the gases from the soil using a PVC column.
Results and discussion
A dramatic difference between the urea-broadcasted and Ca/Mg-UCM-broadcasted soils was found in ammonia emission. A peak emission rate decreased from 38.5 N mg m−2 h−1 of the urea-broadcasted soil to 28.3 N mg m−2 h−1 of the Ca/Mg-UCM-broadcasted soil. This remarkable suppression of the initial ammonia emission could be explained by the events such as delayed urea hydrolysis, dissolution of ammonia into soil waters, especially water adsorbed on MMT, adsorption of ammonia by MMT, and delivery of urea molecules into inner soils through deintercalation and diffusion. Uptake amounts of total N and 15N by whole perilla plants were substantially increased by Ca/Mg-UCM broadcasting, compared with urea broadcasting. The intercalation also suppressed N2O emission noticeably. At the same dosage of urea, Ca/Mg-UCM broadcasting led to an increase in dry weight of kale shoot by 38%, compared with urea broadcasting.
Conclusions
This study has successfully demonstrated that the urea intercalation led to considerable suppression of both ammonia and N2O emissions compared to that with urea-broadcasted soils but without any noticeable effects on fast effectiveness of urea in the former. Thus, clay-intercalated urea as a fast effective fertilizer is expected to greatly contribute to mitigation of ammonia and N2O emissions along with green and sustainable crop production.
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by Technology Development Program for Agriculture and Forestry (No. 106135-3), Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Republic of Korea.
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Table S1
Physicochemical properties of the soil used in this study (DOC 27.0 kb)
Table S2
Dry weight of perilla plants grown for 12 days after broadcasting (DOC 27.5 kb)
Table S3
Effect of the intercalation on yield of kale leaf cultivated in a greenhouse at Gyeongsangbuk-do Agricultural Rural Research & Extension Services in Korea (DOC 28.0 kb)
Fig. S1
Images of perilla leaves exposed to the gases emitted from broadcasted urea. Each pot was broadcasted with an application rate of 200 mg urea/100 g soil. The pots were covered with a vinyl film and maintained at a temperature range of 27 ~ 35°C for 1 day after broadcasting. Urea broadcasting resulted in severe wilting of perilla leaves due to ammonia toxicity (DOC 55.0 kb)
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Kim, K.S., Park, M., Choi, C.L. et al. Suppression of NH3 and N2O emissions by massive urea intercalation in montmorillonite. J Soils Sediments 11, 416–422 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-010-0326-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-010-0326-z