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Yield stability analysis reveals sources of large-scale nitrogen loss from the US Midwest

Loss of reactive nitrogen (N) from agricultural fields in the U.S. Midwest is a principal cause of the persistent hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. We used eight years of high resolution satellite imagery, field boundaries, crop data layers, and yield stability classes to estimate the proportion o...

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Autores principales: Basso, Bruno, Shuai, Guanyuan, Zhang, Jinshui, Robertson, G. Philip
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6453884/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30962507
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42271-1
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author Basso, Bruno
Shuai, Guanyuan
Zhang, Jinshui
Robertson, G. Philip
author_facet Basso, Bruno
Shuai, Guanyuan
Zhang, Jinshui
Robertson, G. Philip
author_sort Basso, Bruno
collection PubMed
description Loss of reactive nitrogen (N) from agricultural fields in the U.S. Midwest is a principal cause of the persistent hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. We used eight years of high resolution satellite imagery, field boundaries, crop data layers, and yield stability classes to estimate the proportion of N fertilizer removed in harvest (NUE) versus left as surplus N in 8 million corn (Zea mays) fields at subfield resolutions of 30 × 30 m (0.09 ha) across 30 million ha of 10 Midwest states. On average, 26% of subfields in the region could be classified as stable low yield, 28% as unstable (low yield some years, high others), and 46% as stable high yield. NUE varied from 48% in stable low yield areas to 88% in stable high yield areas. We estimate regional average N losses of 1.12 (0.64–1.67) Tg N y(−1) from stable and unstable low yield areas, corresponding to USD 485 (267–702) million dollars of fertilizer value, 79 (45–113) TJ of energy, and greenhouse gas emissions of 6.8 (3.4–10.1) MMT CO(2) equivalents. Matching N fertilizer rates to crop yield stability classes could reduce regional reactive N losses substantially with no impact on crop yields, thereby enhancing the sustainability of corn-based cropping systems.
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spelling pubmed-64538842019-04-12 Yield stability analysis reveals sources of large-scale nitrogen loss from the US Midwest Basso, Bruno Shuai, Guanyuan Zhang, Jinshui Robertson, G. Philip Sci Rep Article Loss of reactive nitrogen (N) from agricultural fields in the U.S. Midwest is a principal cause of the persistent hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. We used eight years of high resolution satellite imagery, field boundaries, crop data layers, and yield stability classes to estimate the proportion of N fertilizer removed in harvest (NUE) versus left as surplus N in 8 million corn (Zea mays) fields at subfield resolutions of 30 × 30 m (0.09 ha) across 30 million ha of 10 Midwest states. On average, 26% of subfields in the region could be classified as stable low yield, 28% as unstable (low yield some years, high others), and 46% as stable high yield. NUE varied from 48% in stable low yield areas to 88% in stable high yield areas. We estimate regional average N losses of 1.12 (0.64–1.67) Tg N y(−1) from stable and unstable low yield areas, corresponding to USD 485 (267–702) million dollars of fertilizer value, 79 (45–113) TJ of energy, and greenhouse gas emissions of 6.8 (3.4–10.1) MMT CO(2) equivalents. Matching N fertilizer rates to crop yield stability classes could reduce regional reactive N losses substantially with no impact on crop yields, thereby enhancing the sustainability of corn-based cropping systems. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-04-08 /pmc/articles/PMC6453884/ /pubmed/30962507 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42271-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Basso, Bruno
Shuai, Guanyuan
Zhang, Jinshui
Robertson, G. Philip
Yield stability analysis reveals sources of large-scale nitrogen loss from the US Midwest
title Yield stability analysis reveals sources of large-scale nitrogen loss from the US Midwest
title_full Yield stability analysis reveals sources of large-scale nitrogen loss from the US Midwest
title_fullStr Yield stability analysis reveals sources of large-scale nitrogen loss from the US Midwest
title_full_unstemmed Yield stability analysis reveals sources of large-scale nitrogen loss from the US Midwest
title_short Yield stability analysis reveals sources of large-scale nitrogen loss from the US Midwest
title_sort yield stability analysis reveals sources of large-scale nitrogen loss from the us midwest
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6453884/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30962507
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42271-1
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