Studies on nutrient uptake of rice and characteristics of soil microorganisms in a long-term fertilization experiments for irrigated rice

The ecosystem characteristics of soil microorganism and the nutrient uptake of irrigated rice were investigated in a split-block experiment with different fertilization treatments, including control (no fertilizer application), PK, NK, NP, NPK fertilization, in the main block, and conventional rice and hybrid rice comparison, in the sub block. Average data of five treatments in five years indicated that the indigenous N supply (INS) capacity ranged from 32.72 to 93.21 kg/ha; that indigenous P supply (IPS) capacity ranged from 7.42 to 32.25 kg/ha; and that indigenous K supply (IKS) capacity ranged from 16.24 to 140.51 kg/ha, which showed that soil available nutrient pool depletion might occur very fast and that P, K deficiency has become a constraint to increasing yields of consecutive crops grown without fertilizer application. It was found that soil nutrient deficiency and unbalanced fertilization to rice crop had negative effect on the diversity of the microbial community and total microbial biomass in the soil. The long-term fertilizer experiment (LTFE) also showed that balanced application of N, P and K promoted microbial biomass growth and improvement of community composition. Unbalanced fertilization reduced microbial N and increased C/N ratio of the microbial biomass. Compared with inbred rice, hybrid rice behavior is characterized by physiological advantage in nutrient uptake and lower internal K use efficiency.