Sources and management of nitrogen before or after irrigation on the winter wheat and bean production

Abstract

Studies that demonstrate the effects of sources of nitrogen (N) applied before or after irrigation on the yield of winter crops are limited in literature. In this sense, the objective of this study was to compare the effect of sources of N applied immediately before or after 13 mm irrigation of wheat and bean winter crops. It was used a randomized complete block design, with 4 replicates, in a 5 × 2 + 1 factorial scheme, and 11 treatments consisted of five N sources: urea, polymer-coated urea, urea + ammonium sulfate, ammonium sulfate, and ammonium nitrate and a control treatment (without N fertilization). For wheat, although ammonium nitrate provided great N content in the leaves, the grain yield was lower due to the lodging of the plants; since the application of N either before or after irrigation did not influence the grain yield. Regarding the bean, N fertilization increased productivity, but there were no differences among N sources and, despite the greater N content in the leaves observed with the N supply before irrigation the greatest grain yield was observed when N was applied after the irrigation.