Monday, November 13, 2006 - 3:30 PM
97-7

Agricultural Management of Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers: Eastern Coastal States.

Marcus Alley, Crop & Soil Env Sci Dept, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0403, Gregory Binford, Univ of Delaware, 152 Townsend Hall, Newark, DE 19716, Steven Phillips, Eastern Shore AREC, 33446 Research Dr., Painter, VA 23420, and Deanna Osmond, North Carolina State Univ, Dept of Soil Science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Campus Box 7619, 100 Derieux St, Williams Hall, Raleigh, NC 27695.

Increasing fertilizer nutrient use efficiency is an economic and environmental need.  This report summarizes data on crop response in the mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain to new fertilizer materials that may enhance nutrient use efficiency.  Fertilizer materials that have been recently evaluated include Environmentally Smart Nitrogen (ESN), a polymer coated granular urea fertilizer; Nitamin, a new urea formaldehyde polymer, formulated as a 30% N liquid and in dry granular materials with urea; and a polymer coated NPK fertilizer, Haifa Multigro.  Studies with winter wheat in Delaware indicate that ESN mixed with a soluble N source could provide value as a late-winter early spring topdressing material.  A granular formulation of urea with 10% Nitamin N did not provide sufficient slow release N to be superior to split spring N applications of urea-ammonium nitrate solution (UAN).  Similarly, both ESN and Nitamin 30L applied preplant to corn did not provide superior performance to split application of UAN solution. North Carolina studies also found no differences in maize grain yield, stover yield, NUE and soil N contents between UAN solution and Nitamin 30 L applications. A single application of Nitamin 30L in Virginia produced equal cotton lint yield and higher quality with a preplant application compared to the standard split application.  Nitamin 30L also increased early- to mid-growing season N uptake by tomato compared to the standard 4-0-8 liquid fertilizer, resulting in equivalent fruit yield and significantly lower soil water NO3-N at a 1-m depth.  A single, pre-plant in-bed application of Nitamin 30L did not result in the premium size tomato distribution attained using the standard split fertigation strategy.  The Haifa Multigro fertilizer was also evaluated for staked tomato production.  The standard injected 4-0-8 treatment resulted in greater total fruit yield compared to each of the Haifa Multigro treatments.