Friday, 6 January 2006 - 8:30 AM

Nitrogen management for subsurface drip irrigated cotton

Rajkumari Yabaji1, Kevin F. Bronson2, Cary Green1, Eduardo Segarra3, and J.D. Booker4. (1) Texas Tech University, 15th street and Detroit, Box 2122, Lubbock, TX 79409, (2) Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, Rt. 3, Box 219, Lubbock, TX 79403, (3) Texas Tech University Agricultural and Applied Economics, Box 42132, Agricultural and Applied Economics Department, Lubbock, TX 79409, (4) Texas Agicultural Experiment Station, RR 3, Box 219, Lubbock, TX 79403

In West Texas, the two major constraints that often limit the cotton production are N fertility and water availability (Knowles et al., 1993; Morrow & Krieg., 1990). Subsurface drip irrigated area under cotton in West Texas is expanding at a rapid rate. Subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) systems are one of the most efficient irrigation systems with efficiency of > 90% (Bordovsky and Lyle, 1998). Though the N fertilizer sources are injected frequently at low rates through SDI, Nitrogen (N) fertilizer use efficiency is not high. Previous studies reported that less than 50% of the N fertilizer injected into a SDI cotton system was recovered in the plant (Chua et al., 2003). Field experiments were conducted to study the effect of source of N fertilizer, the timings of termination of N fertigation and spectral reflectance based application of fertilizer to cotton. The two sources of N fertilizer used were Urea Ammonium Nitrate (UAN) (32-0-0), and Ammonium Thio Sulphate(ATS) (28-0-05), ATS is considered to be a nitrification inhibitor and hence reduce N losses. The timings of termination of N fertigation was mid bloom and peak bloom.

[ Recorded presentation ] Recorded presentation

See more of Soil Management & Plant Nutrition Conference - Session 3
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See more of The Beltwide Cotton Conferences, January 3-6 2006