Assessing Effects of Agronomic Nitrogen Management on Crop Nitrogen Use and Nitrogen Losses in the Western Canadian Prairies

Effective agronomic nitrogen management strategies ensure optimum productivity, reduce nitrogen losses, and enhance economic profitability and environmental quality. Farmers in western Canada make key decisions on formulation, rate, timing, and placement of fertilizer nitrogen that are suitable for soils, weather, and farming operations within which they operate. Suitability of agronomic nitrogen management options are assessed by estimates from linear interpolations and extrapolations of temporally and spatially discrete field-plot measurements of nitrogen responses. Such estimates do not account for non-linear and offsetting biogeochemical feedbacks of nitrogen cycles and cannot provide comprehensive nitrogen budgets for alternative nitrogen management options. These limitations can be overcome by using process-based agro-ecosystem models that adequately simulate basic processes of nitrogen biogeochemical cycles and are rigorously tested against site observations.Ecosysis a process-based ecosystem model that successfully simulated the biogeochemical feedbacks among nitrogen, carbon, and phosphorus cycles across different agro-ecosystems. This study deployedecosysto generate spatially and temporally continuous estimates to assess crop nitrogen use and agronomic nitrogen losses from the crop fields across Alberta for alternative nitrogen fertilizer management scenarios. The study simulated effects of four nitrogen management scenarios: fall banded urea, fall banded ESN (Environmentally Smart Nitrogen), spring banded urea, and spring banded ESN on nitrogen recovery and losses from barley fields on mid-slope landforms. These simulations were done at township grids of similar to 10 km x 10 km over 2011-2015 utilizing provincial soil and climate datasets. Modeled annual N2O, N-2, and NH3 emissions, and nitrogen losses in surface runoff and sub-surface discharge were lower by about 25, 30, 70, and 40%, respectively, with spring banding than in fall banding across Alberta. Modeled barley yields and grain nitrogen uptake were similar in spring and fall banding, indicating agro-economic and environmental sustainability advantage of spring banding in Alberta. These modeled estimates were consistent with estimates based on plot and laboratory research for Alberta and similar prairie conditions. This study pioneered a methodology of process-based agroecosystem modeling, which is replicable and scalable to assess cumulative impacts of alternative agronomic nitrogen management options on crop production and the environment on provincial, regional, federal, continental, and global scales.