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Agronomy
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Halving N Waste: Quantification and Abatement of Reactive N Losses...
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Halving N Waste: Quantification and Abatement of Reactive N Losses to the Atmosphere in Cropping Systems

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Soil and Plant Nutrition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 July 2024 | Viewed by 4112

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Guillermo Guardia

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Departamento de Química y Tecnología de Alimentos, ETSI Agronómica, Alimentaria y de Biosistemas, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Interests: nitrogen losses; nitrogen use efficiency; isotopes; soil biochemical processes; arable crops; enhanced-efficiency fertilizers; irrigation
Dr. María Alonso-Ayuso

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Agricultural Technological Institute of Castilla y León, Ctra. Burgos, Km 119, 47071 Valladolid, Spain
Interests: nitrogen use efficiency; sustainable agriculture; agronomy; soil quality
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Zhaohai Bai

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Interests: sustainable agriculture; agriculture; crop management; cover crops
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The recent XXI International Nitrogen (N) Workshop celebrated in Madrid in October 2022 (https://nworkshop.org/) faced the challenge of halving the waste of N from agro-food systems considering different systems and spatial scales. Losses of this valuable resource have major environmental (e.g., gaseous emissions of reactive N to the atmosphere) and economic impacts. The ambitious goal of halving N waste by 2030 requires the implementation of effective reduction practices to reduce pollution, economic costs, and to develop reliable and accurate emission inventories. In the present Special Issue, we are calling for cutting-edge research to share the current knowledge about measurements of direct or indirect gaseous N losses (N2O, NH3, NOx) and quantification of the mitigation potential of management practices to be implemented in cropping systems.

Dr. Guillermo Guardia
Dr. María Alonso-Ayuso
Dr. Zhaohai Bai
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • reactive nitrogen
  • nitrous oxide emissions, nitric oxide emissions
  • ammonia volatilization
  • gas measurements
  • nitrogen surplus
  • nitrogen use efficiency
  • mitigation

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 1948 KiB  
Article
An Incubation System for the Simulation of Ammonia Emissions from Soil Surface-Applied Slurry: Effect of pH and Acid Type
by Nils Carsten Thomas Ellersiek and Hans-Werner Olfs
Agronomy 2024, 14(5), 1078; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy14051078 - 19 May 2024
Viewed by 339
Abstract
Acidification of slurry is a promising approach for reducing ammonia emissions during the application procedure. Since only a few studies have been conducted focusing on ammonia emissions during the application of liquid organic fertilizers on the soil surface, a suitable incubation system was [...] Read more.
Acidification of slurry is a promising approach for reducing ammonia emissions during the application procedure. Since only a few studies have been conducted focusing on ammonia emissions during the application of liquid organic fertilizers on the soil surface, a suitable incubation system was developed to evaluate the effects of acidification under controlled conditions. This incubation system was used to measure the ammonia emissions of various liquid organic fertilizers. The substrates were acidified with sulfuric and citric acid to different pH values to determine both the influence of the pH value of the substrates and of the type of acid on the ammonia emissions. The emissions decreased with declining pH value, and the reduction in emissions compared to the initial pH of the substrate was over 86% for pH 6.5 and over 98% for pH 6.0 and below. At the same pH value, the ammonia emissions did not differ between substrates acidified with citric acid and sulfuric acid, although more than twice as much 50% citric acid was required compared to 96% sulfuric acid to achieve the same pH value. Overall, our results demonstrate that the incubation system used is suitable for measuring ammonia emissions from surface-applied liquid organic fertilizers. The system allows for the differentiation of emission levels at various pH levels and is therefore suitable for testing the effectiveness of additives for reducing ammonia emissions from liquid organic fertilizers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Halving N Waste: Quantification and Abatement of Reactive N Losses to the Atmosphere in Cropping Systems)
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15 pages, 3578 KiB  
Article
OpenToolFlux: An Open-Source Software for Estimating Gas Fluxes from Automatic Chamber Data
by Carmen Galea, Alberto Sanz-Cobeña, Luis Lassaletta, Alba Monistrol, Antonio Vallejo and Rasmus Einarsson
Agronomy 2023, 13(11), 2842; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy13112842 - 18 Nov 2023
Viewed by 951
Abstract
OpenToolFlux 1.0 is an open-source software designed to estimate soil gas fluxes from gas concentration time-series data generated by automatic chamber systems. This paper describes the physical equipment used as well as the software design and workflow. The software is a command-line application [...] Read more.
OpenToolFlux 1.0 is an open-source software designed to estimate soil gas fluxes from gas concentration time-series data generated by automatic chamber systems. This paper describes the physical equipment used as well as the software design and workflow. The software is a command-line application that imports tabular time-series data from the analyzer following the instructions specified in a configuration file by the user, performs configurable data-cleaning operations, and outputs a data file with volumetric flux estimates as well as diagnostic plots. The software can be configured according to the specifics of the physical equipment and experimental setups, and it is, therefore, applicable to a wide range of studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Halving N Waste: Quantification and Abatement of Reactive N Losses to the Atmosphere in Cropping Systems)
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12 pages, 3989 KiB  
Article
Classification of the Nutritional Status of Peach Trees Using Indexes from Hyperspectral Images
by Lourdes Lleó, Pilar Barreiro, Victoria Lafuente, Natalia Hernández-Sánchez and Jesús Val
Agronomy 2023, 13(11), 2713; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy13112713 - 27 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 870
Abstract
This paper presents a procedure for the comparison of two technologies developed to classify peach trees according to their nutritional status. The first technology uses the leaf SPAD-502 meter value to characterize tree classes as indicated by agronomist experts: sound, intermediate, and strong [...] Read more.
This paper presents a procedure for the comparison of two technologies developed to classify peach trees according to their nutritional status. The first technology uses the leaf SPAD-502 meter value to characterize tree classes as indicated by agronomist experts: sound, intermediate, and strong chlorosis trees. It is used as a reference for the second technology, which uses a combination of two multispectral indexes computed from reflectance hyperspectral images. Specifically, R_NDVI = (R800 − R670)/(R800 + R670) and HyperSPAD = (R940/R650) are computed for each leaf pixel. An automated methodology is proposed that sets two optical thresholds (three hyperspectral categories) in view of the outliers according to a normal distribution, together with an iterative optimization of the bounding that determines the best assignment of trees to one of the three SPAD_502 levels of nutritional status, as required for practical agronomical purposes such as fertilization. The Chi 2 distribution is used to confirm the similarity of both nutritional classifications. These results encourage the use of on-board multispectral cameras to monitor the nutritional status of trees and to establish a more efficient fertilization strategy where inputs are applied according to individual status, with the consequent reduction in losses of fertilizers such as nitrogen to the atmosphere, soil, and water resulting from over-application. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Halving N Waste: Quantification and Abatement of Reactive N Losses to the Atmosphere in Cropping Systems)
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19 pages, 3143 KiB  
Article
Effect of Incorporation Techniques and Soil Properties on NH3 and N2O Emissions after Urea Application
by Hannah Götze, Melanie Saul, Yanyan Jiang and Andreas Pacholski
Agronomy 2023, 13(10), 2632; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy13102632 - 17 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1224
Abstract
Ammonia (NH3) emissions affect the environment, the climate, and human health and originate mainly from agricultural sources like urea fertilizers. Such losses from urea fertilizer can be avoided by different application techniques like incorporation. However, the knowledge of the effect of [...] Read more.
Ammonia (NH3) emissions affect the environment, the climate, and human health and originate mainly from agricultural sources like urea fertilizers. Such losses from urea fertilizer can be avoided by different application techniques like incorporation. However, the knowledge of the effect of these techniques on NH3 emissions is very limited and ambiguous since incorporation can also promote nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. Three different principles of fertilizer incorporation methods were compared in three different soils (sandy, loamy, and clayey) at two moisture levels of 70% and 30% water-holding capacity (WHC), shallow mixing at 2 cm, injection with the slit technique at 5 cm, and deep complete incorporation at 5 cm simulating plow incorporation. The laboratory study was conducted with open dynamic incubation chambers where NH3 emissions were monitored with washing bottles while N2O emissions were studied with gas chromatographic (GC) measurements. The highest cumulative NH3 emissions occurred at low soil moisture levels in sandy soil (34% of the N applied). A maximum reduction in emissions by 87% was achieved with slit injection and 82% with deep injection compared to standard surface application. The reduction effect was positively related to increasing clay content. N2O emissions were delayed and highest from sandy soil. Overall, all urea incorporation techniques showed great potential for mitigating NH3 emissions on the clayey soil; for sandy and drier soils, only deeper or closed slot injection were consistently effective. However, connected to the surface incorporation at the higher moisture level, a relevant increase in N2O emissions compared to surface application was observed. Therefore, an increase in N2O emissions by urea incorporation may rule out specific incorporation techniques for NH3 emissions reduction from field-applied urea. In agricultural practice, a lower reduction in NH3 by fertilizer incorporation can be assumed in sandy soils or under dry soil conditions, as well as a more challenging technical implementation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Halving N Waste: Quantification and Abatement of Reactive N Losses to the Atmosphere in Cropping Systems)
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