Field Crops Research ( IF 5.6 ) Pub Date : 2023-04-27 , DOI: 10.1016/j.fcr.2023.108950 Bo Yao , Syed Tahir Ata-Ul-Karim , Yanling Li , Tianyang Ye , Yan Zhu , Weixing Cao , Qiang Cao , Liang Tang
Context
Yield components play a decisive role in regulating the potential crop grain yields, and their formation is greatly influenced by in-season nitrogen (N) management, as N is essential of optimizing crop growth.
Objectives
To test the applicability of critical N dilution curve based instantaneous N nutrition index (NNI) and integrated NNI (NNIinte) in-season prediction of grain yield and its components in wheat.
Methods
This study evaluated the applicability of the critical N dilution curve for predicting grain yield and yield components in wheat by establishing the relationships of NNI and NNIinte with relative grain yield (RY), dry matter (RDM), number of spikes (RPN), number of grains per spike (RGN), and grain weight at different growth stages of wheat. Data were acquired from six multi-N rates field experiments conducted in eastern and central China.
Results
The RY, RPN, and RDM were estimated by NNI and accumulated NNIinte during different growth stages of wheat. The higher R2 values of relationships observed during the middle to later growth stages compared with early growth stages indicated that the early growth stages might not be suitable for estimating wheat grain yield and yield components. The NNIinte specifically during booting to anthesis stage showed improved accuracy estimating the number of grains per spike compared to other stages.
Conclusions
Overall, the estimation performance based on accumulated NNIinte was superior compared to NNI or NNIinte during the single growth stage of wheat. The above models provided comprehensive and accurate estimates dry matter at maturity, grain yield and yield components as early as the anthesis stage.
Implications
The findings provided valuable insights for predicting grain yield and yield components in intensive wheat cropping systems, and also offer practical guidance for precisely scheduling N management.