Urea Transformation and Nitrogen Loss in Waterlogged Soil Column

An experiment was conducted to obtain the quantitative data on the transformation and loss of applied urea-N in waterlogged soil columns. The soil columns were pre-incubated for 35 days to develop oxidized and reduced soil conditions prior to urea application. After urea application at the rate of $150kg\;N\;ha^{-1}$(29.5 mg N), the amounts of nitrogen which were volatilized, leached, and remained in soil column were measured during 38 days of incubation period. On 2 and 4 days of incubation, 54.1%(15.9 mg N) and 98.4%(29.0mg N) of the applied urea was hydrolyzed, respectively. Most of the applied urea was completely hydrolyzed within 6 days. After urea application, the rates of ammonia volatilization were increased with the floodwater pH when the floodwater pH were higher than 7.0. The maximum rate of ammonia volatilization was $0.3mg\;d^{-1}$ when pH of the floodwater showed maximum value of 7.6. The total amount of volatilized nitrogen was 6.1% (1.8mg N) of the applied urea-N. A 63.2 % (18.6mg N) of the applied urea was remained in soil as $NH_4{^+}-N$ and 28.0% (8.2mg N) of the applied urea was leached as $NH_4{^+}-N$ at the end of the incubation. Amount of $NO_3{^-}-N$ in soil was smaller than 2.0 mg throughout the incubation period. The total amount of $NO_3{^-}-N$ leached was very small, which value was 1.8 mg. It suggested that nitrification process was not significant in waterlogged soil column of this study due to high infiltration rate of urea solution applied to the soil column. Therefore only small amount of $NO_3{^-}-N$ was lost by denitrification and leaching process.