Enhanced Efficiency N Fertilizers: an Effective Strategy to Improve Use Efficiency and Ecological Sustainability

In the face of climate change, improving the efficacy of applied nitrogen (N) with a low environmental footprint is crucial for feeding hungry stomachs and making production systems sustainable. Across the globe and specifically in India, with the advent of the green revolution, the need for synthetic N fertilizers increased exponentially with the crop production trends. But, applying an enormous volume of N fertilizers has boundless pessimistic impacts, and cutting-edge technologies such as enhanced efficiency nitrogen fertilizers (EENFs) are an upstanding approach. The EENFs (limited release and balanced urea-based N fertilizers) have synchronized release of N as per crop need leading to enhanced efficacy and lessening the losses in contrast to conventional urea. EENFs with substantiating enhanced efficiency is emerging as intelligent formulations compared to an appropriate reference in reducing the probable nutrient losses to the surroundings by regulating the momentum of release or soil fertilizer transformation dynamics. The augmented expenditure of more frequently used soluble N fertilizers improved crop performance; the speed of environmental impairment related to N application prompted us for EENFs. This manuscript has outlined EENFs with a particular emphasis on constituent, its classification schemes and the mode of action implicated in N release, soil factors affecting its efficient use, and delineation of the performance of EENFs on crop productivity under varied agroecosystems in greater detail. In a nutshell, it can be said that EENFs could be an effective strategy to mitigate environmental degradation while sustaining crop yield. Still, their judicious use warrants exclusion of any fertilizer mismanagement, addiction, and implementing knowledge-based N management practices.