He, H.; Hu, Q.; Pan, F.; Pan, X. Evaluating Nitrogen Management Practices for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction in a Maize Farmland in the North China Plain: Adapting to Climate Change. Plants2023, 12, 3749.
He, H.; Hu, Q.; Pan, F.; Pan, X. Evaluating Nitrogen Management Practices for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction in a Maize Farmland in the North China Plain: Adapting to Climate Change. Plants 2023, 12, 3749.
He, H.; Hu, Q.; Pan, F.; Pan, X. Evaluating Nitrogen Management Practices for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction in a Maize Farmland in the North China Plain: Adapting to Climate Change. Plants2023, 12, 3749.
He, H.; Hu, Q.; Pan, F.; Pan, X. Evaluating Nitrogen Management Practices for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction in a Maize Farmland in the North China Plain: Adapting to Climate Change. Plants 2023, 12, 3749.
Abstract
Quantification of the trade-offs among greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, yield and farmers’ incomes is essential for proposing economic and environment nitrogen (N) management strategies for optimizing agricultural production. A four-year (2017–2020) field experiment (including four treatments: control experiment (CK), suitable utilization of fertilization (SU), emission reduction treatment (ER), and high fertilization (HF)) was conducted on maize (Zea mays L.) in the North China Plain. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method was used in this study to quantify the GHG emissions and farmers’ incomes during the whole maize production process. The total GHG emissions of CK, SU, ER and HF treatments in the process of maize production are 10,755.2, 12,908.7, 11,950.1, and 14,274.5 kg CO2-eq ha−1 respectively, of which the direct emissions account for 84.8%, 76.8%, 74.9%, and 71.0%, respectively. Adding inhibitor significantly reduced direct GHG emissions, and the N2O and CO2 emissions from the maize fields in the ER treatment decreased by 30.0% and 7.9% compared to those in the SU treatment. Insignificant differences in yield were found between the SU and ER treatments, indicating that adding fertilizer inhibitors did not affect farmers’ incomes while reducing GHG emissions. The yield for SU, ER and HF treatments all significantly increased by 12.9%–24.0%, 10.0%–20.7% and 2.1%–17.4% compared to CK, respectively. In comparison with CK, both SU and ER significantly promoted agricultural net profit (ANP) by 16.6% and 12.2% with the mean ANP values of 3,101.0 USD ha-1 and 2,980.0 USD ha-1, respectively. Due to the high agricultural inputs, the ANP values in the HF treatment was 11.2%, 16.6% and 12.4% lower than those in the SU treatment in 2018–2020. In conclusion, the combination of N fertilizer and inhibitors was proved to be an environmentally friendly, high-profit and low-emissions production technology while sustaining or even increasing maize yields in the North China Plain, which was conducive to achieving agricultural sustainability.
Keywords
maize yield; nitrogen management; life cycle assessment; greenhouse gas; agricultural net profit
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Sustainable Science and Technology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
