Activated water irrigation with reduced nitrogen fertilizer enhances rice yield and nitrogen use efficiency

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Chinese explanation / 中文解读

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Original abstract

Balancing high rice yield with reduced nitrogen input is a critical challenge for sustainable agriculture. While activated water irrigation shows potential for improving crop performance, its efficacy in synergy with nitrogen management, particularly for enhancing nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), remain largely unexplored. Here, we conducted a pot experiment to evaluate the effects of activated water (i.e. aerated water (AW) and magnetized water (MW)) irrigation, compared to tap water (TW), on rice performance across three nitrogen application rates (low, medium, high). Our findings revealed that activated water, particularly AW, significantly accelerated seed germination and improved seedling establishment. At low and medium nitrogen levels, AW and MW irrigation stimulated significant root tip numbers by a 20.6-32.5% and 13.8-28.7%, respectively. These improvements in root architecture were associated with enhanced nitrogen uptake and higher leaf photosynthetic performance. As a result, AW and MW increased grain yield by 8.2-13.6% and 2.5-8.9%, and elevated NUE by 26.2-32.0% and 14.4-15.7%, respectively, under reduced nitrogen conditions. Conversely, no significant improvements were observed at the high nitrogen level, highlighting that activated water is most effective in nitrogen limited conditions. Given that aerated water demonstrated superior performance, our study suggests that its integration with reduced nitrogen fertilization may offer a potent strategy for achieving environmentally sustainable rice production.

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