Efficiency of urea application in fertigation of coffee trees irrigated by central pivot, using 15N tracer

• Grant number: 07/04750-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: November 01, 2007
• End date: February 28, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Crop Science
• Principal Investigator: Klaus Reichardt
• Grantee: Isabeli Pereira Bruno
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This fellowship request belongs to the Ph.D. program which began in February 2007 and involves activities as credits in disciplines, seminars, supervised training periods and thesis writing. Disciplines and seminars will be taken until the first semester of 2008 and following that the thesis work will be started with a deep reference revision and studies on the coffee crop, besides studies of the methodologies to be employed in the experimental part, with is based on the fact that the efficiency of nitrogen fertilization for the coffee crop is still not well known under intensive and irrigated conditions, when high applications rates are used without much scientific basis. Besides the cost/benefit problem, these rates can lead to undesired environmental impact, which can be minimized through management practices introduced by scientific knowledge. Using the 15N as a urea tracer, the present project aims to follow its fate within the soil-plant-atmosphere system, during a complete productive cycle of coffee crop under plain production, representative in relation to soil-climate and intensive management practices used under pivot irrigation. Information will be obtained on the partitioning of urea N in the different plant parts, shoot and root, also quantifying losses like leaching and volatilization. Obtained information will be of fundamental importance for the coffee production in Brazil as a whole, but also for the State of São Paulo, to which most of the scientific group of this multidisciplinar project belongs. The Ph. D. program finishes with the thesis defense, which is foreseen for November 2010.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

BRUNO, Isabeli Pereira. Efficiency of urea applied by pivot central fertigation to coffee plants, using 15N tracer. 2011. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALA/BC) Piracicaba.