Nutrition of Cotton Fertilized with Poultry Litter Versus Ammonium Nitrate

Poultry litter has proven to be an effective fertilizer for cotton in the upland soils of the southeastern US.  Often, fertilizing with poultry litter results in better lint yield than fertilizing with single-nutrient synthetic fertilizers.  It is likely this superiority of litter for cotton production than synthetic fertilizers is related to the ability of litter to supply many of the essential metal nutrients in addition to the usual N, P, and K.  This has not been well investigated in the field.  In this research, the metal nutrition of cotton fertilized with broiler chicken litter and ammonium nitrate was investigated to determine if the yield increasing effect of litter may be related with the better metal nutrition.  The results indicate cotton fertilized with increasing rates of litter or ammonium nitrate had improved metal nutrient concentration in leaves.