{"id":2129,"date":"2025-09-22T13:43:48","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T12:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/?p=2129"},"modified":"2025-09-22T13:43:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T12:43:48","slug":"applying-green-manure-and-zeolite-and-reducing-n-fertilization-in-maize-mitigates-n2o-emission-while-maintaining-yield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/2025\/09\/22\/applying-green-manure-and-zeolite-and-reducing-n-fertilization-in-maize-mitigates-n2o-emission-while-maintaining-yield\/","title":{"rendered":"Applying green manure and zeolite and reducing N fertilization in maize mitigates N2O emission while maintaining yield"},"content":{"rendered":"<script type='text\/javascript' src='https:\/\/d1bxh8uas1mnw7.cloudfront.net\/assets\/embed.js'><\/script><div id=\"Abs1-content\" class=\"c-article-section__content\">\n<figure id=\"attachment_2130\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2130\" style=\"width: 366px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-2130\" src=\"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/13593_2025_1033_Fig1.jpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"376\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/13593_2025_1033_Fig1.jpg.jpg 1949w, https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/13593_2025_1033_Fig1.jpg-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/13593_2025_1033_Fig1.jpg-1024x614.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/13593_2025_1033_Fig1.jpg-768x461.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/13593_2025_1033_Fig1.jpg-1536x921.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/13593_2025_1033_Fig1.jpg-640x384.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 376px) 100vw, 376px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2130\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Planting pattern of the spatial arrangement of monoculture maize (a) and maize intercropped with green manure (b) systems. Maize monoculture system at the jointing (V9) stage (c). Maize intercropped with common vetch at the seedling stage (d). Chamber setup in maize and inter-row space\/common vetch row, respectively (c and d). All photographs by the authors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Green manure is widely employed to substitute chemical N fertilizer. However, the potential of further alleviating N<sub>2<\/sub>O emission when combined with efficient management technologies has not been fully explored. To reduce this research gap, a 2-year field experiment was conducted in northwestern China. The aim was to investigate the impact of zeolite application on N<sub>2<\/sub>O emission in the maize-common vetch intercropping system under 30% N reduction, as well as the possible mechanisms. The experiment included two cropping systems, namely monoculture maize and maize-common vetch intercropping, along with three amendment practices, namely conventional N, 70% conventional N, and zeolite application under 70% conventional N. Compared with monoculture maize under conventional N, maize-green manure intercropping combined with zeolite application under 70% chemical N achieved comparable yields. Simultaneously, this practice reduced cumulative N<sub>2<\/sub>O and yield-scaled N<sub>2<\/sub>O emissions by 36.9% and 39.2%, respectively. This reduction can be attributed to a decrease in soil ammonium-N by 20.9%\u201357.7%, nitrate-N by 47.7%\u201351.3%, nitrate reductase activities by 25.3%\u201334.4% and N<sub>2<\/sub>O-producer (i.e., <i>nirS<\/i> and <i>nirK<\/i>) abundance by 17.3%\u201379.4% in denitrification, and an increase in the N<sub>2<\/sub>O-reducer (i.e., <i>nosZ<\/i>) abundance by 40.0%\u2013103.4%. Compared with 100% N input, 70% chemical N treatment reduced ammonium-N by 22.3%\u201341.0%, nitrate-N by 25.4%\u201341.0%, and N<sub>2<\/sub>O-producer abundance by 17.1%\u201335.0% in denitrification. Zeolite application reduced denitrifying enzyme activities by 8.2%\u201312.9%, N<sub>2<\/sub>O-producer abundance by 42.5%\u201356.4%, but increased N<sub>2<\/sub>O-reducer abundance by 13.3%\u201323.3% in denitrification. PLS-PM analysis showed that N<sub>2<\/sub>O emission mitigation was mainly related to reduced soil ammonium-N and nitrate-N, decreased N<sub>2<\/sub>O-producer abundance, and increased N<sub>2<\/sub>O-reducer abundance in denitrification. These findings provide new insights into the fact that intercropping green manure combined with zeolite application effectively mitigates N<sub>2<\/sub>O emission by regulating mineral N, N-cycling enzymes, and denitrifier abundances while maintaining maize yield after cutting 30% N input.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"c-bibliographic-information__citation\">Liu, R., Chang, D., Liang, H. <i>et al.<\/i> Applying green manure and zeolite and reducing N fertilization in maize mitigates N<sub>2<\/sub>O emission while maintaining yield. <i>Agron. Sustain. Dev.<\/i> <b>45<\/b>, 43 (2025). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s13593-025-01033-2<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Green manure is widely employed to substitute chemical N fertilizer. However, the potential of further alleviating N2O emission when combined with efficient management technologies has not been fully explored. To reduce this research gap, a 2-year field experiment was conducted in northwestern China. The aim was to investigate the impact of zeolite application on N2O &#8230; <a title=\"Applying green manure and zeolite and reducing N fertilization in maize mitigates N2O emission while maintaining yield\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/2025\/09\/22\/applying-green-manure-and-zeolite-and-reducing-n-fertilization-in-maize-mitigates-n2o-emission-while-maintaining-yield\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Applying green manure and zeolite and reducing N fertilization in maize mitigates N2O emission while maintaining yield\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intercropping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2131,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129\/revisions\/2131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}