Nursery‐Box Total Fertilization Technology (NBTF) Application for Increasing Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Chinese Irrigated Riceland: N–Soil Interactions

High N fertilizer and flooding irrigation applied to rice in anthropogenic-alluvial soil often result in N leaching and low use efficiency of applied fertilizer N from the rice field in Ningxia irrigation region in the upper reaches of the Yellow River. Sound N management practices need to be established to improve N use efficiency while sustaining high grain yield levels and minimize fertilizer N loss to the environment. We investigated the effects of Nursery Box Total Fertilization technology (NBTF) on N leaching at different rice growing stages, N use efficiency and rice yield in 2010 and 2011. The four fertilizer N treatments were 300 kgNha(-1) (CU, Conventional treatment of urea at 300 kgNha(-1)), 120 kgNha(-1) (NBTF120, NBTF treatment of controlled-release N fertilizer at 120 kgNha(-1)), 80 kgN ha(-1) (NBTF80, NBTF treatment of controlled-release N fertilizer at 80 kgNha(-1)) and no N fertilizer application treatment (CK). The results showed that the NBTF120 treatment increased N use efficiency, maintained crop yields and substantially reduced N losses to the environment. Under the CU treatment, the rice yield was 9634 and 7098 kg ha(-1), the N use efficiency was 31.6% and 34.8% and the leaching losses of TN were 44.51 and 39.89 kg ha(-1); NH4+-N was 5.26 and 5.49 kg ha(-1), and NO3--N was 27.94 and 26.22 kg ha(-1) during the rice whole growing period in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Compared with CU, NBTF120 significantly increased the N use efficiency and decreased the N losses from the paddy field. Under NBTF120, the N use efficiency was 56.3% and 51.4%, which was 24.7% and 16.6% higher than that of CU, and the conventional fertilizer application rate could be reduced by 60% without lowering the rice yield while decreasing the leaching losses of TN by 16.27 and 14.36 kg ha(-1), NH4+-N by 0.90 and 1.84 kg ha(-1), NO3--N by 110.6 and 10.14 kg ha(-1) in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Our results indicate that the CU treatment resulted in relatively high N leaching losses, and that alternative practice of NBTF which synchronized fertilizer application with crop demand substantially reduced these losses. We therefore suggest the NBTF120 be a fertilizer application alternative which leads to high food production but low environmental impact. Copyright (C) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.