Bioactive Zincated Urea Effectively Enhanced Crop Yield, Nitrogen Use Efficiency, and Grain Quality in Maize and Rice

Coating materials generally a provide physical barrier to control instant dissolution of the urea fertilizer thereby delaying its consequent reactions in soil. The use of zinc salt as coating material causes slow dissolution of urea due to physical impact and hence minimizes immediate urea hydrolysis, ammonia (NH3) volatilization and enhances N utilization in crop production. The current investigation studied the impact of Bioactive Zincated urea on NH3 losses, yield parameters and quality traits of maize and rice crops grown under field conditions. Treatments included Bioactive zincated urea (ZU) was applied at 100%, 90% and 80% of recommended N rates (RNR) (125 and 160 kg N ha-1 for rice and maize, respectively) having a control (zero N application), conventional urea at RNR (CU100) without Zn and along with Zn (CU+Zn) treatments. The NH3 losses were recorded at 2, 4, 7 and 14 days after application of each split application of N treatments. The results indicated 117 and 6% increase in maize grain and 167 and 2.7% in total paddy yield as compared to control (no Zn) and CU+Zn, respectively while the corresponding increase in grain Zn concentration was 37 and 15% in maize and 25 and 14% in rice, respectively. Similarly, the corresponding grain N increases were 16 and 22%. Furthermore, ZU100 application markedly decreased NH3 volatilization (5 to 14% in maize and 2 to 24% in rice field) as compared to CU100. The studies clearly elucidates the effectiveness of Bioactive zincated urea in increasing yield and quality of crops (rice and maize); the lower N application (up to 80% of RNR) is possible without imminent impact on crop yield as well as on environment owing to lower N losses.