Effect of Tillage and Nitrogen Rate on Corn Response in a Corn-Soybean Rotation

Soil tillage has significant impact on soil, water, and nutrient extraction by crop plants. In the short-term, tillage can improve soil aeration, the mineralization of organic matter, and availability of N and P in the soil system. However, long-term no-tillage systems enhance greater mineralizable C and N pools in the soil system contrary to conventional tillage systems. Thus, the uptake of N by crop plants is potentially changed with different tillage systems and their interactions with different N rates and N application timing. An understanding of the effect of different tillage systems and their interactions with N rate on the availability of N and P uptake by crop plants at different growth stages is essential to the efficient management of N and P in crop production system. The objective of this research was to investigate the effect of three tillage systems(no-tillage, NT;strip-tillage, ST; chisel plow, CP) and four N rates of two sources of N on corn responses and N and P use efficiencies