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