IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natsus/v2y2019i12d10.1038_s41893-019-0429-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Crop production in Pakistan and low nitrogen use efficiencies

Author

Listed:
  • Ahmad Naeem Shahzad

    (Bahauddin Zakariya University)

  • Muhammad Kamran Qureshi

    (Bahauddin Zakariya University)

  • Abdul Wakeel

    (University of Agriculture)

  • Tom Misselbrook

    (Rothamsted Research, Okehampton)

Abstract

Overuse of nitrogen (N) fertilizer, a crucial productivity factor in world cropping systems, is detrimental to the sustainability of crop production from an economic and environmental perspective. Mean yield, N fertilizer use, partial factor productivity (PFP) of N, N use efficiency (NUE) and N surplus in wheat, cotton and rice production in Pakistan, which account for 75% of total national fertilizer N use, were compared with those for the top producer countries for 2014. Pakistan was among the top four in terms of N use but had low mean yields, with the lowest PFP and NUE and highest N surplus. During 1961–2014 in Pakistan, N fertilizer use and N surplus grew at a much faster pace than mean yields; however, PFP and NUE continued to decline to much lower levels. The great potential for Pakistan to increase NUE lies in agronomic practices other than increasing N fertilization, such as balanced crop nutrition, irrigation management, inclusion of legumes in crop rotations, precision in-season N management and the use of enhanced efficiency fertilizers, as is the case for many other parts of the world.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahmad Naeem Shahzad & Muhammad Kamran Qureshi & Abdul Wakeel & Tom Misselbrook, 2019. "Crop production in Pakistan and low nitrogen use efficiencies," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 2(12), pages 1106-1114, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natsus:v:2:y:2019:i:12:d:10.1038_s41893-019-0429-5
    DOI: 10.1038/s41893-019-0429-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0429-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41893-019-0429-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shahzadi Mahpara & Muhammad Shafqat Bashir & Rehmat Ullah & Muhammad Bilal & Salma Kausar & Muhammad Imran Latif & Muhammad Arif & Imran Akhtar & Marian Brestic & Ali Tan Kee Zuan & Ehab A A Salama & , 2022. "Field screening of diverse wheat germplasm for determining their adaptability to semi-arid climatic conditions," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(3), pages 1-13, March.
    2. Leghari, Shah Jahan & Han, Wenting & Soomro, Aijaz Ahmed & Shoukat, Muhammad Rizwan & Zain, Muhammad & Wei, Yichang & Xu, Qiang & Buriro, Mahmooda & Bhutto, Tofique Ahmed & Soothar, Rajesh Kumar & Lag, 2024. "Navigating water and nitrogen practices for sustainable wheat production by model-based optimization management systems: A case study of China and Pakistan," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 300(C).
    3. Anik, Asif Reza & Eory, Vera & Begho, Toritseju & Rahman, Md. Mizanur, 2023. "Determinants of nitrogen use efficiency and gaseous emissions assessed from farm survey: A case of wheat in Bangladesh," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natsus:v:2:y:2019:i:12:d:10.1038_s41893-019-0429-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.