Nitrogen Source Study for Greenhouse gas Reduction through Agricultural Carbon Enhancement network in Fort Collins, Colorado

Nitrogen fertilization is essential for optimizing crop yields; however, it increases N2O emissions. The study objective was to compare N2O emissions resulting from application of commercially available enhanced-effi ciency N fertilizers with emissions from conventional dry granular urea in irrigated cropping systems. These emissions were monitored from several irrigated cropping systems receiving N fertilizer rates ranging from 0-246 kg/ha from years 2007-2008 with intermediate rates of 157 kg/ha applied to the barley crop in corn-barley rotation and 56 kg/ha applied to the dry bens in the corn-dry bean rotation. Cropping systems included conventional-till continuous corn (CT-CC), no-till continuous corn (NT-CC), no-till corn–dry bean (NT-CDb), and no-till corn–barley (NT-CB). Nitrous oxide fluxes were measured during ten growing seasons using static, vented chambers and a gas chromatograph analyzer. This work shows that the use of no-till and enhanced-effi ciency N fertilizers can potentially reduce N2O emissions from irrigated systems.