Nitrous Oxide Emission and Denitrifier Abundance in Two Agricultural Soils Amended with Crop Residues and Urea in the North China Plain

The application of crop residues combined with Nitrogen (N) fertilizer has been broadly adopted in China. Crop residue amendments can provide readily available C and N, as well as other nutrients to agricultural soils, but also intensify the N fixation, further affecting N(2)O emissions. N(2)O pulses are obviously driven by rainfall, irrigation and fertilization. Fertilization before rainfall or followed by flooding irrigation is a general management practice for a wheat-maize rotation in the North China Plain. Yet, little is known on the impacts of crop residues combined with N fertilizer application on N(2)O emission under high soil moisture content. A laboratory incubation experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of two crop residue amendments (maize and wheat), individually or in combination with N fertilizer, on N(2)O emissions and denitrifier abundance in two main agricultural soils (one is an alluvial soil, pH 8.55, belongs to Ochri-Aquic Cambosols, OAC, the other is a lime concretion black soil, pH 6.61, belongs to Hapli-Aquic Vertosols, HAV) under 80% WFPS (the water filled pore space) in the North China Plain. Each type soil contains seven treatments: a control with no N fertilizer application (CK, N0), 200 kg N ha(-1) (N200), 250 kg N ha(-1) (N250), maize residue plus N200 (MN200), maize residue plus N250 (MN250), wheat residue plus N200 (WN200) and wheat residue plus N250 (WN250). Results showed that, in the HAV soil, MN250 and WN250 increased the cumulative N(2)O emissions by 60% and 30% compared with N250 treatment, respectively, but MN200 and WN200 decreased the cumulative N(2)O emissions by 20% and 50% compared with N200. In the OAC soil, compared with N200 or N250, WN200 and WN250 increased the cumulative N(2)O emission by 40%-50%, but MN200 and MN250 decreased the cumulative N(2)O emission by 10%-20%. Compared with CK, addition of crop residue or N fertilizer resulted in significant increases in N(2)O emissions in both soils. The cumulative N(2)O emissions from the treatments of 250 kg N ha(-1) were 1.1–3.3 times higher than those of treatments with 200 kg N ha(-1) in both soils with adding equal amounts of the same type of crop residue. Abundance of the 16S rRNA gene did not significantly change in all treatments in two soils, but the nosZ and nirS genes were more abundant in soils amended with crop residues compared with CK or N-only treatments. N(2)O emission, however, were not related to the abundance of denitrifier containing nirS or nosZ. The research provided some information regarding the effect of crop residues with N fertilizer on N(2)O emissions and denitrifier abundances in two soils. Our results imply the property of crop residue and rate of N fertilizer are important influencing factors of N(2)O emission when crop residues combined with N fertilizer are applied to different agricultural soils.