[Discussion on the calculation method of nitrogen use efficiency (NIUE) in long-term field experiments under wheat...

In recent years, some scholars from China have deeply discussed about the concept, connotation and calculating method of nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), and have raised questions and also put forward some improved methods for NUE calculation in cultivated lands. In this paper, we compared advantages and disadvantages of these improved NUE calculation methods by using the data from a 5-year positioning field experiment under a wheat-maize rotation system. The results indicated that it made mistakes when the traditional subtraction method was used to calculate NUE for wheat season and maize season separately, since the soil fertility level of experimental plots had differed significantly from each other after several seasons or years of different fertilization managements. Additionally, the calculated NUE increased markedly with the cropping season going, thus making it difficult to mirror the actual situation of N utilization in cultivated lands. For the wheat-maize rotation system, the cumulative NUE calculation method considered wheat season and maize season as a whole part, and skillfully avoided mistakes which could be caused by inhomogeneity of soil fertility levels between experimental plots. Moreover, the calculated NUE were comparably smaller, with smaller coefficient variations (CVs), in contrast with the traditional subtraction method. The NUE calculated by using the ratio method were bigger, with the smallest CVs, than that computed by using the cumulative calculation method. The soil N balance method took a thoughtful consideration about the budgets and losses of soil nutrients before and after crop growth, but obtained the largest values of NUE and CVs within these methods.