Dependence of wheat and rice respiration on tissue nitrogen and the corresponding net carbon fixation efficiency under different rates of nitrogen application

To quantitatively address the role of tissue N in crop respiration under various agricultural practices,and to consequently evaluate the impact of synthetic fertilizer N application on biomass production and respiration, and hence net carbon fixation efficiency (Encf), pot and field experiments were carried out for an annual rotation of a rice-wheat cropping system from 2001 to 2003. The treatments of the pot experiments included fertilizer N application, sowing date and planting density. Different rates of N application were tested in the field experiments. Static opaque chambers were used for sampling the gas. The respiration as CO2 emission was detected by a gas chromatograph. A successive biomass clipping method was employed to determine the crop autotrophic respiration coefficient (Ra). Results from the pot experiments revealed a linear relationship between Ra and tissue N content as Ra = 4.74N-1.45 (R2= 0.85, P<0.001). Measurements and calculations from the field experiments indicated that fertilizer N application promoted not only biomass production but also increased the respiration of crops. A further investigation showed that the increase of carbon loss in terms of respiration owing to fertilizer N application exceeded that of net carbon gain in terms of aboveground biomass when fertilizer N was applied over a certain rate. Consequently, the Encf declined as the N application rate increased.