Elsevier

Field Crops Research

Volume 263, 1 April 2021, 108049
Field Crops Research

The response of agronomic characters and rice yield to organic fertilization in subtropical China: A three-level meta-analysis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2020.108049Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Organic fertilization improved the soil nutritional status in subtropical China.

  • Organic fertilization increase rice yield in subtropical China.

  • Fertilization regimes influence the response of rice yield to organic ferritization.

  • Organic fertilizer types affect the response of rice yield to organic ferritization.

  • Experimental duration affect the response of rice yield to organic ferritization.

Abstract

Organic fertilizer plays a critical role in developing sustainable cropping systems due to its positive impacts on soil fertility, crop productivity, and environmental sustainability. Yet, a systematic and quantitative analysis on how organic fertilization affects soil physicochemical properties, nutrient uptake and physiological use efficiency, agronomic characteristics, yield, and yield components of rice (Orzya sativa L.) is lacking. In this study, a synthesized three-level meta-analysis from 74 peer-reviewed papers which concentrated on rice production with organic fertilizer application at 85 sites in subtropical China was conducted to investigate how organic manure affects soil fertility and rice productivity. The results showed that organic fertilization significantly increased soil organic carbon (SOC) by 15.6 %, and available nutrients varied from 2.3%–20.2%. Moreover, organic fertilization significantly increased leaf area index, content of chlorophyll, and total biomass accumulation at grain-filling and ripening stages, which was favorable to the promotion of grain filling. Overall, organic fertilization significantly increased rice yield by 8.3 %, which was attributed to the higher nutrient uptake and physiological use efficiency. In addition, the response of rice yield was various under different subcategories. The magnitude of the increase in rice yield was the greatest under the treatment with animal manure (10.5 %), followed by biochar (8.3 %) and crop straw (7.2 %) due to the higher SOC sequestration and nitrogen use efficiency with animal manure incorporation compared with biochar and crop straw amendment. In addition, organic fertilization was most effective at improving the rice yield when the content of SOC was <10 g kg−1, indicating that it was an effective way to improve the crop production of infertile soil. The response of rice yield to organic fertilization increased as the experimental duration increased, which was of great significance as the rice yield could be improved through long-term application of organic fertilizer. The results of the present study indicated that organic fertilization is an effective practice for rice production in subtropical China.

Introduction

Increasing crop production while lowering environmental pollution has been a grand challenge for society due to the ever-growing population and deteriorating environment in the 21 st century (Raphaël et al., 2017; Xu et al., 2020b). The application of chemical fertilizer is considered to be one of the most effective agronomic practices for increasing crop yield (Khem et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018a). However, successive and considerable application of chemical fertilizer has triggered serious environmental damage, such as widespread soil acidification (Li et al., 2019a), a serious greenhouse effect (Wang et al., 2016a), and devastating water pollution (Cui et al., 2020). Moreover, a large number of studies have revealed that crop yield might stagnate with increasing input of chemical fertilizer (Hawkesford, 2014; Kubheka et al., 2020). Over-application of chemical fertilizer, integrated with a disregard for organic fertilizer as an option for nutrient resources, leads to a lower fertilizer utilization rate (Sun et al., 2018). It is well-known that applying excessive chemical fertilizer to reduce the risk of yield loss induced by insufficient nutrients in China (Wang et al., 2018b). Consequently, there is great potential to reduce the input of chemical fertilizer in crop production.

There is a long history of recycling organic nutrients in agriculture, but this practice is rapidly vanishing under intensive farming systems with the increase of chemical fertilizer application in China (Cui et al., 2018). The excessive use of chemical fertilizer has resulted in an increasingly larger environmental footprint (Liu et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2016b). With the increase of public attention to environmental issues, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China formulated a policy of zero growth in chemical fertilizer application in 2015 (Wang et al., 2020). Thus, reducing fertilizer application and improving crop yield is the primary objective for agriculture production in China. Recently, a large number of studies have investigated alternative fertilization regimes which make use of organic amendments including animal manure (Tang et al., 2018), crop straw (Zhang et al., 2017) and biochar (Wu et al., 2019). Some researchers have indicated that the application of organic fertilizer could be a sustainable practice for crop yield due to its ability to improve soil fertility (Liu et al., 2011; Xie et al., 2016) and reduce environmental pollution (Zhai et al., 2011; Hang et al., 2014). However, previous studies have stated that organic fertilizer could reduce crop yield (Bijay et al., 2008; Verena et al., 2012). Clarifying the factors controlling the discrepancy response of crop production to organic amendment is vital to encourage the development and promotion of sustainable cropping systems.

Rice (Orzya sativa L.), which is a staple food resource for Chinese people, is widely planted in China, accounting for more than 20 % of the total cultivated area (Yang et al., 2004; Huang et al., 2013). The rice planting area is concentrated in subtropical China, often growing in a humid monsoon climate, and the availability of soil nutrients is the main limiting factor for rice production (Tong et al., 2009; Mi et al., 2018). Thus, the knowledge of the soil nutritional status, rice agronomic characters, and rice yield in response to organic fertilization, and how these factors are influenced by fertilization regimes, organic fertilizer types, and experimental duration, is of great importance for rice production. However, a review of the literature including quantitative information to investigate the response of rice yield and its controlling factors in subtropical China has not been conducted.

Meta-analysis is a powerful statistical technique for integrating the results of independent experiments to quantitatively assess the direction and magnitude of a treatment effect and to detect the underlying factors on global and regional scales. The present study is a meta-analysis of field experiments about rice production to organic fertilization in subtropical China which aims to reveal (i) how soil physico-chemical properties respond to organic fertilization; (ii) how the nutrient uptake, physiological use efficiency and biological indices of rice are affected by organic fertilization and (iii) how organic fertilization regimes, organic fertilizer types, SOC, and experimental duration influence the response of the rice yield to organic fertilization.

Section snippets

Data collection

A collection of peer-reviewed articles published before April 2020, which was concentrated on the responses of soil physicochemical properties (pH, SOC, soil bulk density (BD); total nutrients including total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and total potassium (TK); available nutrients including available nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), and available potassium (AK)); nutrient uptake (N, P, and K); and physiological use efficiency (kg grain yield divided by kg nutrient uptake) of

Overall response of soil physicochemical properties to organic fertilization

The overall responses of the selected soil physicochemical properties to organic fertilization are presented in Fig. 3. Organic fertilization increased soil pH by 3.9 % (95 %CI: 2.2 %–5.6 %), while it decreased soil bulk density by 3.3 % (95 %CI: 1.9 %–4.7 %). SOC showed a positive increase by 15.6 % (95 %CI: 11.5 %–19.7 %) due to the application of organic fertilizer. In terms of total nutrients, organic fertilization led to increases of 8.3 % (95 %CI: 6.9 %–9.7 %), 2.0 % (95 %CI: 0.8 %–3.2

Overall response of rice yield and yield components to organic fertilization

This three-level meta-analysis demonstrated that organic fertilization significantly increased the rice yield by 8.3 % in subtropical China. However, the study of Bijay et al. (2008), which was also a literature review, found no significant increase in rice yield following organic fertilization in Asia. This discrepancy might be caused by the small amount of data from China included in the research by Bijay et al. (2008) indicating that the results were not representative of the overall

Conclusion

By studying the results of reported field experiments carried out in subtropical China, this meta-analysis demonstrates that organic fertilization significantly increases the nutritional status of soil, especially the SOC and availability of nutrients, and the rice yield. The increased rice yield was mainly attributed to the higher nutrient uptake and physiological use efficiency following treatment with organic fertilizer. Moreover, organic fertilization was found to significantly increase the

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Liyuan Liu: Data curation, Formal analysis, Resources, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Houyu Li: Software, Visualization. Shuhao Zhu: Software. Yi Gao: Visualization. Xiangqun Zheng: Project administration, Supervision. Yan Xu: Methodology, Supervision, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by The National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFD0201200) and The National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFD0201201).

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