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Nitrogen is one of the most essential elements for crop growth. Nitrogen fertilizer has been widely applied to increase crop yields. At the same time, a large number of negative impacts have posed a great threat to the ecological environment in recent years. Among them, nitrogen leaching can be attributed to the excessive application of chemical fertilizers in farmland. Fortunately, the combined application of organic and chemical fertilizers can be expected to effectively reduce soil nitrogen leaching in normal fertilization during agricultural production at present. Therefore, this study aims to explore the combination application mode of organic and chemical fertilizers with a low risk of nitrogen leaching in farmland. The search terms were selected as chemical fertilizer, organic fertilizer, and nitrogen leaching using the two databases of China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science. The peer-reviewed and published papers were then obtained up to January 2022. Finally, a total of 35 papers (22 papers from Web of Science, 13 papers from CNKI) and 331 effective data pairs were collected after screening for the combination application of organic and chemical fertilizers in farmland. The target variables were taken as the total nitrogen (TN), nitrate nitrogen (NO3 - -N), and dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), while the chemical fertilizer was the control. After that, Metawin 2.1 software was used to determine the overall effects of the total amount of fertilization, fertilization structure (organic fertilizer substitution ratio), fertilization time (basic topdressing), and the types of organic fertilizers on the nitrogen leaching, where the chemical fertilizer was as the control. The results showed that there was a significant influence of the above fertilization behavior on nitrogen leaching. Once the total amount of nitrogen was less than 200 kg/hm2, the leaching of TN and NO3 - -N in farmland decreased by 36.77% and 65.05%, respectively. When the substitution ratio of organic fertilizers was higher than 70%, the TN leaching was reduced by 39.64%, whereas the risk of dissolved DON leaching increased by 15.78%. Especially, there was a 26.31% increase in DON leaching in the application of animal-based organic fertilizers combined with chemical fertilizers. Correspondingly, the application of nitrogen fertilizer significantly reduced the leaching of TN and NO3 - -N by 43.58% and 70.51%(P<0.05), respectively. A certain impact was also found in the soil pH and land use patterns on nitrogen leaching. For example, the combined application of organic and chemical fertilizers on the alkaline dryland soil effectively inhibited the leaching of TN and NO3 - -N, whereas, there was an increase in the leaching of DON by 26.63%-42.95%. Nitrogen leaching in dryland was dominated by the NO3 - -N leaching. By contrast, the emission factor (EF) was higher than that in the paddy field. The increasing replacement ratio of organic fertilizers can be expected to greatly reduce the soil nitrogen leaching in dryland, but to enhance the DON leaching. In addition, the Matlab software was used to analyze the importance of factors using the random forest model. Specifically, the replacement ratio of organic fertilizer demonstrated a dominant effect on TN leaching. There was also the more important effect of the nitrogen application level on the NO3 - -N and DON leaching. Therefore, the low level of nitrogen application and the high substitution ratio of animal-based organic fertilizers can be used to effectively reduce the soil nitrogen leaching loss in the alkaline dryland, compared with the chemical fertilizers only. The finding can provide the practical basis for the combined application of organic and chemical fertilizers in farmland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the pneumatic centralized fertilizing and seeding methods were developing rapidly. The pneumatic centralized fertilizing system was mainly used for layered fertilizing operation. The fertilizing pipes of the fertilizer discharging system were connected with the fertilizer outlet of the layered fertilizing shovel. Under the actions of air flow, the fertilizer was transported to the outlet of the fertilizing shovel quickly and remotely, so as to realize the layered application of the fertilizer in the soil. In this paper, in view of the problems such as the fertilizer falling into the inlet was not smooth and the airflow velocity at the outlet was too high, which leading to fertilizer bounce and dust when the fertilizer discharging system and layered deep fertilizing shovel were combined, the relationship between the structure of each part of the fertilizer discharging system and the working parameters was studied through the test-bench of the pneumatic centralized fertilizer discharging system, and the structure of the fertilizing system was optimized. An air-fertilizer separation device was designed, which was installed between the distributor outlet and the fertilizer discharging pipe of the layered deep fertilization shovel, part of the airflow from the fertilizing system was discharged by the air-fertilizer separation device in advance to reduce the airflow velocity at the fertilizer outlet of fertilizing system. The structure and basic working parameters of each component of fertilizing system were determined through theoretical analysis and parameter calculation. In specific, the airflow velocity of the fertilizing system inlet should be greater than 25 m/s, the diameter of the air-fertilizer conveying pipe, fertilizer inlet and fertilizer outlet was 76, 55 and 20 mm, respectively. The main factors affecting the airflow velocity at fertilizer outlet and inlet of fertilizing system were also determined through analysis. Taking the exhaust outlet area of the air-fertilizer separation device (A), the airflow velocity of the fertilizing system inlet (B) and the fertilizing rate (C) as the test factors, the quadratic regression rotary orthogonal platform experiment was conducted. According to the test results, the mathematical regression model between the test indexes and the influencing factors was established. The results showed that the exhaust outlet area of air-fertilizer separation device, airflow velocity of the fertilizing system inlet and fertilizing rate had a significant effect on airflow velocity at fertilizer outlet of fertilizing system, and exhaust outlet area of air-fertilizer separation device had a significant effect on the airflow velocity at inlet of fertilizing system. The optimized parameters were conducted by fitting and optimizing the test results. It was obtained that airflow velocity at fertilizer outlet, fertilizer inlet of fertilizing system was 5.91 and 3.94 m/s, respectively, the exhaust outlet area of the air-fertilizer separation device, airflow velocity of the fertilizing system inlet and fertilizing rate were 798.0 mm², 28.10 m/s and 0.28 kg/s, respectively. The verification test results showed that the airflow velocity at fertilizer outlet and fertilizer inlet of the system was 6.02 and 4.11 m/s, the fertilizer at the inlet of the fertilizer discharging system falled smoothly and stably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of environmental pollution caused by excessive use of chemical fertilizers has seriously restricted the sustainable development of green-oriented agriculture in China. Quantitative and uniform mechanized fertilization as an important measure to improve the utilization rate of chemical fertilizers and reduce the amount of chemical fertilizers has become an important way to solve agricultural environmental pollution. In this paper, a spiral disturbance cone centrifugal chemical fertilizer apparatus was designed to solve the problem of precision fertilization due to the insufficient fluency and stability of the fertilizer apparatus fertilizing processes and insufficient uniformity of fertilizer discharge. First of all, the design principles and working principles of the fertilizer apparatus is illustrated. Then the structural parameters of the spirally disturbance cup and curved cone disk are designed, based on the physical and mechanical properties of the granular fertilizer and the requirement of fertilization for rapeseed sowing. Moreover, fluency, uniformity and stability of the fertilizing performance are verified by bench test and field test. The SINO-AGRI fertilizer, STANLEY fertilizer and EZHONG fertilizer are respectively used as experimental materials to carry out the bench test of the fertilizer apparatus. The rotational speed of cone disc measured by SW6234C laser speedometer, there are total 6 levels, are 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130 r/min. Coefficient of variation of fertilizing amount consistency in every row, the coefficient of variation of fertilizing amount stability and coefficient of fertilizing amount consistency in same row are used as the evaluation index in the bench test for evaluating fluency, uniformity and stability of the fertilizing performance. The test results of bench show that the variation coefficient of fertilizing amount in every row of three compound fertilizers is below 11.5%. The coefficient of variation of fertilizing stability under chemical fertilizer conditions with different rotational speeds and physical and mechanical properties is below 6.3%, and the variation coefficient of fertilizing amount in same row is above 93%. Therefore, the fertilizer apparatus meets the quality requirements of fertilizer discharge. Meanwhile, variation coefficient of fertilizing amount in every row is 9.82% when the rotational speed of cone is low and the fertilizer apparatus is tilted, that means that the fertilizer apparatus still has better fertilizing performance in the inclined state. The adaptability applied to a narrow-width fertilizing machine of less than 8 rows is weak. The cone disc is successively rotated through the 1 to 8 row of fertilizer tube. When the rotational speed of cone disc is low, the next discharge tube of the blocked fertilizer pipe has a larger amount of fertilizer, the amount of chemical fertilizer in the other fertilizer pipes is basically the same, and the difference in the amount of fertilizer discharged from each row of fertilizer pipes is small. While the rotational speed of cone disc is high, the previous discharge tube of blocked has a larger amount of fertilizer, the difference between the fertilizing amount of this discharge tube and other discharge tube is larger, the amount of fertilizer in the other fertilizer tube is basically same. Furthermore, the field test was carried out to verify the fertilizing performance of the spiral disturbance cone centrifugal fertilizer apparatus. The results of field experiment show that the variation coefficient of fertilizing amount in every row is below 7.9%, the coefficient of variation of fertilizing stability is below 5.3%, the variation coefficient of fertilizing amount in same row is above 93.5%. This research provides effective technical support for chemical fertilizer reduction and precision fertilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differential pressure tank is a widely used fertilization device in the application of fertilization in China and many other countries. However, the fertilizer concentration in the tank continuously decays with the inflow of water. The decay feature of fertilizer concentration can easily lead to excessive fertilization at the head and insufficient fertilization at the end of the irrigation system. An analytical solution was proposed in this paper to achieve uniform fertilization based on differential pressure tank with constant fertilizer concentration and flux. The relationship between the uniform fertilization analytical solution and the fertilizer continuity equation was obtained based on differential pressure tank. The analytical solution was expected to control the flux flowing into the differential pressure tank and the flux directly flowing into the irrigation system through the main pipe according to 4 parameters: Uniform fertilizer concentration, initial fertilizer concentration, the volume of differential pressure tank and the total fertilization flux of the main pipe. Based on the analytical solution, the fertilizer continuity equation and the incompressible continuity and momentum equations of water were used for describing the movement of mixture in the differential pressure tank. The numerical model for mixed water and fertilizer flow in the differential pressure tank was determined by experimental data. The fertilizer concentration simulated by numerical model was nearly uniform in the tank and the fertilizer concentration at tank outlet obtained by numerical model decayed with a negative exponential pattern as described by Feng’s theory. The numerical simulation results directly verified the accuracy of the basis of Feng’s theory. The differential equation was also the basis of the uniform fertilization. The mean absolute error between the differential equation and the experimental data was less than 0.041 when the boundary condition of traditional fertilization method was substituted into the differential equation, which indirectly proved the rationality of uniform fertilization method satisfying the boundary conditions of constant fertilizer concentration and flux. The analytical solution’s feasibility in the uniform fertilization process based on differential pressure tank was simulated by the numerical model of fertilizer solution in determining the uniform fertilizer concentration and the fertilization time. The fertilizer concentration at tank outlet simulated by the numerical model decayed almost linearly and agreed with the uniform fertilization analytical solution. The fertilizer concentration simulated by the numerical model at drip irrigation system inlet was almost uniform and in agreement with the analytical solution of uniform fertilization. The relative bias of fertilizer concentration between the analytical solution and computation calculated by the numerical model was less than 15%, which verified the feasibility of uniform fertilization method based on differential pressure tank. The results showed that the application of uniform fertilization method and the uniform fertilization method could basically achieve constant fertilizer concentration and flux based on differential pressure tank. According to the actual product, the relationship between valve opening and time could be obtained in order to realize the control of valve opening process by computer. Approximately 70% to 80% of fertilizer in the normal operation was within range of the excessive or insufficient amount, whereas the uniform fertilization method could effectively avoid the waste of excessive fertilization and the lack of insufficient fertilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil respiration is mediated by microbial activities, temperature, humidity and other environmental factors in soil. The increase in use of microbial organic fertilizer and drip irrigation in greenhouse production could alter soil micro-environment, particularly the rhizosphere, thereby leading to a change in soil respiration. This paper investigated the response of soil respiration to different combinations of drip irrigation amounts and microbial organic fertilizer applications. We experimentally compared three irrigation amounts 15, 18 and 21 mm – associated with three microbial organic fertilizer applications 2800, 3600 and 4400 kg/hm². The treatment with inorganic fertilizer application served as the control. In each treatment, we measured soil respiration rate and accumulated carbon emission, as well as other determinants. The soil temperature and humidity were measured following the soil respiration measurement using the delta-T sensor (delta-T company, UK); soil organic matter was measured using the potassium dichromate sulfuric acid oxidation external heating method; the activity of dehydrogenase was determined using the TTC colorimetry method; the activity of urease was determined by the phenol sodium colorimetry method; the activity of catalase was determined by the KMnO4 volumetric method. We analyzed the responsive change in soil respiration to these determinants and root biomass. The results showed that, compared to the CK, drip irrigation and microbial organic fertilization improved soil organic matter and increased the activities of dehydrogenase, urease and catalase by 11.6%-27.6%, 8.0%-27.7% and 1.8%-11.2%, respectively; the increase in urease activities was at significant level (p<0.05). The soil respiration rate was positively correlated to the root biomass, temperature and organic matter content at significant level of p<0.01, and to the enzymatic activities at significant level of p<0.05. Among all treatments, irrigating 18 mm of water and applying 4400 kg/hm² of microbial organic fertilizer produced the highest root biomass, reaching 394 g/m² 120 days after the transplanting. Overall, combining drip irrigation and microbial organic fertilization increased root biomass by 25.9%-43.4%, compared to the CK. When irrigation amount was 15 and 18 mm, the carbon emission increased significantly (p<0.05) when the fertilizer application increased from 3600 kg/hm² to 4400 kg/hm². The cumulative carbon emission peaked at 415.2 g/m² when the irrigation amount was 18 mm and the microbial fertilization was 4400 kg/hm², significantly higher than that under other treatments (p<0.05). The lowest cumulative carbon emission was from the CK, being 255.3 g/m² only. In summary, this study showed that drip irrigation and microbial organic fertilization combined to impact soil carbon emission by changing organic matter content and root biomass in the soil. Our results have important implications for improving ecological cultivation in greenhouse production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of fertilizer and water technology is one of the important means to improve the effective utilization rate of chemical fertilizers. The solenoid valve control mode based on pulse width modulation is the main technical means to adjust the amount of suction flow. But at present, the researches of scholars at home and abroad mainly focus on these 3 aspects: Water-fertilizer coupling effect test, venturi structure optimization and performance analysis, water and fertilizer machine pipeline design. And the venturi suction characteristics in the solenoid valves switch on and off mode was little concerned. In this paper, on the 5-channel pipeline online mixed water and fertilizer integration test platform, the hall flow sensor was used to test the instantaneous flow of single channel in the valve opening time of 0.3, 0.5, 1 and 2 s. The average flow of single switch under different valve opening and closing time. The average flow under 10 consecutive switches was calculated by pulse correction method. All the pulses and the time elapsed for each pulse were collected and recorded, and the flow rate was calculated according to the pulse total number, effective pulse number and the pulse correction respectively. The actual flow was measured by the electronic scale and compare with the calculated values of the 3 methods respectively. The results showed the relative error of the flow rate calculated by the total pulse number method was much larger than the effective pulse method and the pulse correction method, but the relative error decreases with the increase of the valve opening time. Compared with the total pulse number method, the measurement accuracy of the effective pulse method was greatly improved. The accuracy of the pulse correction method was the highest, the relative error was less than 4% during the valve opening duration of 0.3-2 s, and the pulse correction method was more advantageous when the valve opening duration was shorter. The suction characteristics test results showed that in the continuous switch mode of the solenoid valve, the shorter the valve closing time, the smaller the total number of pulses and the average flow rate. The average flow rate of each valve decreased rapidly with the valve opening time increasing. when the valve opening time was longer than 5 s, the average flow rate of fertilizer absorption tended to be stable at 10 L/min. In the combined structure of venturi and fertilization pump, the greater the fertilization pressure, the smaller the suction flow, but no significant effect on the energy storage and discharge process of the venturi injector. During the maximum energy storage and discharge time, the amount of suction flow by the venturi injector decreased with the prolonging of the valve opening time, and increased with the prolonging of the valve closing time. The test results of the venturi injector under the single switch showed that the maximum energy storage time (vacuum) of the venturi injector was 10 s, and the maximum energy release time (the time when the suction flow was stable) was 1 s. This research can provide technical support for the design and application of intelligent variable water and fertilizer machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Warming climate has been a global concern. Methane is an important greenhouse gas. Double rice cropping system in Hunan province contributes a large proportion of the national rice production. In this study, we studied the effect of agricultural managements of rice on methane emissions from double cropping paddy fields in Hunan Province, China based on Meta-analysis method. Only studies designed as side-by-side paired field experiments were included in this study. Field management practices, treatments, and controls were described in detail in each study, and the location of the experiment was provided. If seasonal accumulative CH4 emission fluxes were not directly provided, these values were calculated by multiplying time and mean CH4 emissions by the measurement period. A total of 53 published peer-reviewed papers published before 2018were obtained by reference retrieval. From them, 840 groups of data were drawn. The management measures included crop rotation, symbiosis ecosystem, tillage, nitrogen fertilizer input, organic manure and residue retention. The control and treatment groups were fallow versus winter crops, paddy-rice system versus rice-duck and rice-fish systems, conventional versus no tillage, no fertilizer-N input versus fertilizer-N input, no manure input versus fertilizer-N and manure input, and fertilizer-N input versus residue retention. Natural log of response ratio was used as the effect size in the random effect meta-analysis. Results showed that CH4 emissions from both early and late rice accounted for 97.9% of annual CH4 emissions, and more CH4 emissions from late rice was observed than that for early rice. In the double rice cropping system, adding winter crops could significantly increase CH4 emissions from double rice season by 43.88% (P < 0.05) compared to winter fallow. Moreover, the increase in methane emissions from early rice was significantly higher than that from late rice. Symbiosis ecosystem of rice (i.e., with ducks or fishes) and adopting no-till significantly decreased CH4 emissions by 37.02% and 26.84% (P < 0.05), respectively. The decrease in the emission from early rice field was much higher than that from late rice field. As for yield-scaled emission, application of N fertilizer decreased yield-scaled CH4 emissions by 40.01% (P < 0.05) mainly due to the yields increased by 73.87% (P < 0.05). Additionally, organic fertilizer application and residue retention increased 68.11% and 71.80% (P < 0.05) of yield-scaled CH4 emissions without impacting the rice yield. The results suggested adopting symbiosis ecosystem rice production or no-till along with optimized N input is conducive to balancing rice yield and CH4 emissions from fields with double rice cropping system in Hunan province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was aimed to investigate the effects of organic fertilizer application (single application of organic fertilizer and organic-inorganic fertilizer combination) on the CO2 emission in farmland soil during crop growth period, under different climate types, fertilization measures, organic fertilizer types and experiment years in Northern China. Non-fertilizer and inorganic fertilizer application were used as control treatments. Based on the published data of relevant experiment and the Meta-analysis method, the quantitative effects on application of organic fertilizer and organic-inorganic fertilizer combination on CO2 emission in farmland soil were studied. A total of 534 measurements were obtained including 89 pairs of data from 21 literatures. The experiments lasted from 1980 to 2017. The effects were determined by effect size by Meta-analysis method. The important factors affecting CO2 emission were selected by finding out those with important values higher than 0.8. The results showed that the organic fertilizer application significantly generally increased the CO2 emission in farmland soil than the non-fertilizer and inorganic fertilizer application, with an increment of 50.6% and 36.3%, respectively. No publication bias was found because the fail-safe number was far higher than the critical values by the fail-safe method. There was not significantly different among regions (P>0.05). Under the application of organic fertilizer, the CO2 emission of farmland soil decreased successively in the following order: single application of organic fertilizer, organic-inorganic fertilizer combination, and combined application of inorganic fertilizer, organic fertilizer and slow-release fertilizer. Soil CO2 emission did not significantly increase under the combined application of organic fertilizer, inorganic fertilizer and slow-release fertilizer. Compared with non-fertilizer, cow manure, pig manure and commercial organic manure, chicken manure had the greatest positive effects on soil CO2 emission. Under the application of organic fertilizer, the CO2 emission of farmland soil in gray desert was relatively high. The CO2 emission of farmland soil was positively correlated with the annual average temperature and negatively correlated with the annual average precipitation. The annual average temperature and annual average precipitation could explain about 11%-16% and 10%-12% change in effect size of CO2 emission, respectively. From the perspective of environment, it was suggested to apply the combined application of inorganic fertilizer, organic fertilizer and slow-release fertilizer in Northern China. Meanwhile, the chicken manure should not be applied in large quantities and organic fertilizer should not be used in grey desert farmland. The results of this study can provide valuable information for the popularization and application of organic fertilizer replacing partial chemical fertilizer in Northern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]