Rethinking sources of nitrogen to cereal crops

Understanding how to manage N inputs to identify the practices that maximize N recovery has been an organizing principle of agronomic research. Because growth in N fertilizer inputs is expected to continue in an ongoing effort to boost crop production over coming decades, understanding how to efficiently manage recovery of fertilizer N will be important going forward. Yet synthesis of published data that has traced the fate of ¹⁵ N-labeled fertilizer shows that less than half of the N taken up by crops is derived from current-year N fertilizer. The source of the majority of N in crops is something other than current-year fertilizer and the sources are not really known. This is true for maize (only 41% of N in crops was from current-year N fertilizer), rice (32%), and small grains (37%). Recovery of organic fertilizer N (manure, green manure, compost, etc.) in crops is low (27%), though N recovery in subsequent years (10%) was greater than that for mineral fertilizers. Thus, while research on efficiency of N fertilizer use through improved rate, type, location, and timing is important, this research fails to directly address management of the majority of the N supplied to crops. It seems likely that the majority of non-fertilizer N found in crops comes from turnover of soil and crop residue N. We encourage the research community to revisit the mental model that fertilizer is a replacement for N supply from turnover of soil organic N (SON) and consider a model in which N fertilizer augments ongoing SON turnover and makes an important longer term contribution to SON maintenance and turnover. Research focused on the efficient recovery of N current-year fertilizer inputs neglects this potential role for building soil N and managing soil N turnover, which seems likely to be the most important source of crop N.