Open Access

ARTICLE

Response of Nitrogen Use Efficiency, Yield and Quality of Rice to Nitrogen Reduction Combined with Organic Fertilizer in Karst Region

Guiling Xu^1,#, Xiaoxuan You^1,#, Yuehua Feng^1,2,*, Xiaoke Wang¹, Yuqi Gao¹, Hongjun Ren¹, Zhili Han¹, Jiale Li¹

1 College of Agronomy, Guizhou University, Guiyang, 550025, China
2 Key Laboratory of Plant Resource Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guiyang, 550025, China

* Corresponding Author: Yuehua Feng. Email:
# These authors contributed equally to this work

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2025, 94(10), 3251-3268. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2025.067997

Received 19 May 2025; Accepted 11 August 2025; Issue published 29 October 2025

Abstract

Nitrogen (N) reduction combined with organic fertilizer has become a highly popular fertilization method, meeting the sustainable development of agriculture. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of N reduction (NR) and combined application of organic fertilizer (OF) on N utilization, yield, and quality of hybrid indica rice in the karst area. Using rice ‘Yixiangyou2115’ as the material, a split-plot design experiment was carried out with OF application rate as the main plots and NR rate as the subplots. The OF application rate had three levels: M0 (0 kg/ha), M1 (low OF, 1673 kg/ha), and M2 (high amount OF, 3346 kg/ha). The NR rate had four levels: R1 (NR rate 0%), R2 (NR rate 25%), R3 (NR rate 50%), and R4 (NR rate 100%). Rice yield was the highest under R3 in the same amount of OF, and compared with R1M0, the yield of R2M2 increased significantly. In terms of N efficiency, with the increase in the N reduction rate, N recovery efficiency, agronomic efficiency (AE), and partial factor productivity (PFP) showed a continuous increase trend under the same amount of OF, and compared with R1M0, the AE, physiological efficiency, PFP of 50% N reduction with low or high amounts of organic fertilizer were significantly increased. Rice quality exhibit different patterns of change with different NR rate and OF application rate. In summary, NR combined with OF fertilization mode was conducive to the improvement of N efficiency, yield, and quality of hybrid indica rice.

---

Keywords

---