Americas and Oceania Group - International Plant Nutrition Institute

Environmentally Sound Fertilization Technology for Vegetables and Banana
Project Leader: Prof. Zhang Mingqin, Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences Soil and Fertilizer Institute, Fuzhou,
Fujian. E-mail: Zhangmq2001@163.com
Project Cooperators: Li Juan, Kong Qingbo, and Chen Yanhua
Vegetable planting area in Fujian Province has reached 670,000 ha with a total production of 14,530,100 t,
and is valued at USD 33 billion. However, imbalanced fertilization practices usually followed by farmers here
affect the environment negatively. This study was conducted by the Soil and Fertilization Institute of Fujian
Academy of Agricultural Science with the objectives of demonstrating efficient fertilization technology for
vegetables and banana in Fujian.
Results showed that balanced fertilization helped attain maximum lettuce yield of 46 t/ha (8.7% increase
over farmers’ practice) with net income of USD 1,509/ha. For banana, the results showed that average yield
of balanced fertilization plots was 43.8 t/ha. Nitrogen fertilization contributed banana yield 0.8 to 4.2 t/ha, P
fertilization contributed 0.2 to 4.4 t/ha and K fertilization contributed 1.2 to 3.8 t/ha over farmers’ practice. A
control plot without fertilizer revealed that soil indigenous nutrient supplies contributed about 50% of banana
yield.
A long-term field experiment has been running in Pinghe county since 2008 with green beans-cucumberearly
rice rotation. Unfertilized plots showed that the soil indigenous fertility contributed about 61% to
vegetable yield and about 80% to rice yield. The residual effect of N and P fertilizers applied to the two
vegetable crops in rotation, had a positive impact on the yield of early rice yield. No fertilization in the
rice growing season obtained the highest economic profit with less than 10% lower yield, reflecting the
large supply of residual nutrients left after the two vegetable crops. After cucumber, soil NO 3- -N and P
concentrations of soil water were 1,125 mg/L and 2.267 mg/L, and after rice planting season, it dropped to
143.5 mg/L and 0.435 mg/L. Therefore, in this rotation, rice planting not only greatly increased fertilization
efficiency, but also greatly reduced the NO 3- -N and P concentrations of soil water. In this rotation with
optimum fertilization treatment, N loss was reduced by 67.7 kg/ha and N use efficiency increased from 45.1
to 65.6%, while P loss reduced by 6.6 kg/ha and P use efficiency increased from 17.9 to 26.5% over farmers’
practice. Fujian-10
Study on the Plant Nutrition Characters and Management Technology for High Yield and Quality of Peanuts
Project Leader: Li Zhiyu, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science Oil Crops Research Institute, Wuhan, Hubei.
E-mail: Zylimail@oilcrops.cn
Project Cooperators: Liao Boshou, Li Jun, and Ma Hao
Peanut is an important oil and cash crop in China that was sown in 42.5 M ha area with a total production
of 14.29 M t in 2008. Peanut oil accounted for 23% of the domestic vegetable oil production in China, next
only to Rapeseed oil. Hubei is one of the main peanut growing provinces in China. This study on balanced
fertilization of peanut was successfully carried out by the Oil Crops Research Institute, Chinese Academy of
Agricultural Sciences in Yicheng, Xiangyang, and Hong’an counties of Hubei province in 2011.
Results indicated that K and lime are the main limiting factors for peanut growing in these regions.
Compared with the common farmers’ practice, an additional application of potash increased peanut yields by
6.9% while lime application significantly increased summer peanut yields by 23%. Field experiment results
showed that foliar application of Fe, Mn, and Mo had no significant effect in reducing peanut’s disease of leaf
etiolation. Film-mulching technology increased seed germination, seedling number, and yield by 14.3, 17.1,
and 28.4%, respectively, than no mulching treatment. Hubei-28
70 IPNI Interpretive Summaries