Nitrogen fertilisation for fields with sugar cane crop residues

Nitrogenous fertilisers are used inefficiently by cane crops in Australia. For example, only 32% of N from urea applied below the soil surface was recovered in the crop, but this compared with just 17% when urea was broadcast on crop residues (BSES unpublished data). However, urea is the preferred N carrier for the Australian sugar industry because of price considerations. There is a need to evaluate fertilising strategies to improve the efficiency of use of fertiliser-N by the crop. This paper reports on field trial results where the effect of different placements and rates of urea on cane yields are evaluated.