Ammonia and carbon dioxide emissions by stabilized conventional nitrogen fertilizers and controlled release in corn crop

ABSTRACT The market of stabilized, slow and controlled release nitrogen (N) fertilizers represents 1% of the world fertilizer consumption. On the other hand, the increase in availability, innovation and application of these technologies could lead to the improvement of N use efficiency in agroecossystems and to the reduction of environmental impacts. The objective of this study was to quantify agronomic efficiency relative index, ammonia volatilization, and CO2 emissions from conventional, stabilized and controlled release N fertilizers in corn summer crop. The experiment was carried out in a corn crop area located in Lavras, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, without irrigation. All treatments were applied in topdressing at rate of 150 kg ha-1 N. N-NH3 losses from N fertilizers were: Granular urea (39% of the applied N ) = prilled urea (38%) > urea coated with 16% S0 (32%) = blend of urea + 7.9% S0 + polymers + conventional urea (32%) > prilled urea incorporated at 0.02 m depth (24%) > urea + 530 mg kg-1 of NBPT (8%) = Hydrolyzed leather (9%) > urea + thermoplastic resin (3%) = ammonium sulfate (1%) = ammonium nitrate (0.7%). Thermoplastic resin coated urea, ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate presented low values of cumulative CO2 emissions in corn crop. On the other hand, hydrolyzed leather promoted greater C-CO2 emission, when compared with other nitrogen fertilizers.