The Nitrogen Fertilizer Value of Preplant-Incorporated Poultry Litter for Flood-Irrigated Rice

摘要

Poultry litter contains an abundance of nitrogen (N) and has been used to fertilize pastures and forage crops in western Arkansas for a number of years. The objective of this study was to determine the N-fertilizer value of preplant-incorporated freshand pelletized litter in comparison to urea fertilizer applied before flooding rice at the five-leaf stage. Studies were conducted on two silt loams and one clay soil in 2003. Litter was preplant-incorporated at rates of 0, 30, 60, 120, 180, and 240 Ibtotal-N/acre and compared with urea applied preflood at 0 to 150 Ib N/acre for silt loam soils and 0 to 250 Ib N/acre for the clay soil. Rice N content and grain yield were used to estimate the value of litter as a N fertilizer source. Fresh and pelletized litter behaved similarly with both litter sources being less efficient N fertilizers when compared with urea. Maximum N uptake and rice yield were produced only when urea-N was applied at rates from 90 to 150 Ib N/acre for silt loam soils and 200 to 250 Ib N/acre for the clay soil. Averaged across litter-N application rates, rice recovered between 0 and 10% of litter-N by 0.5-in. internode elongation (IE) and 5 to 25% of litter-N by early heading compared to >40% ofurea-N.