A comparative assessment of polymer-coated and non-coated urea in direct-seeded rice: agronomic, economic, and environmental performance and sensitivity analysis

Abstract

The application of polymer-coated urea (PCU) to crops is likely restricted because the product's capsules cause plastic pollution. Although conventional fertilizer use reduces plastic pollution, it may increase nitrogen (N) pollution owing to its lower N recovery than that of PCU. Therefore, we need to develop optimal N application methods to reduce both plastic and N pollution. Here, we aimed to (1) compare the agronomic, economic, and environmental outcomes of PCU application with those of conventional urea application and (2) provide quantitative targets for developing alternatives to PCU application in dry direct-seeded rice production. We developed a model incorporating yield, brown-rice protein content, farmer profit, and environmental damage cost due to N and polymer losses according to N fertilizer application. Data were collected from field experiments at a farm in Iwate, Japan from 2020 to 2022. The average apparent N recovery was 0.43 for PCU and 0.37 for conventional urea. Despite the plastic damage cost, the estimated total environmental cost of PCU was lower than that of normal urea owing to the former's higher N recovery. However, our ability to simulate plastic pollution is limited, as few of the environmental effects of microplastics are understood. If new N application methods with N recovery above 0.5 are developed, an N fertilization cost within $5 × 10⁻³ g⁻¹ N can maintain the same benefit as that obtained in the current simulation. This model can be used to evaluate the quantitative relationships among N recovery, benefits, and implementation costs of each candidate N application method.

Keywords

Dry direct-seeded rice / Nitrogen pollution / Nitrogen recovery efficiency / Polymer-coated urea / Yield estimation

Abbreviations

ANR: apparent nitrogen recovery

ANR_F: apparent nitrogen recovery of each fertilizer type

Cost_other: labor cost excluding topdressing

Cost_td: topdressing labor cost

DAS: days after sowing

DC: the environmental damage costs converted to the price of reactive N

DC_p: the environmental damage costs converted to the price of microplastics

DDSR: dry direct-seeded rice

EC: environmental cost

FNB: farmer's net benefit accounting for the social cost

Frac_p: the fraction of plastic capsules released from farmland to the ocean

N_br: nitrogen accumulation in brown rice

N_loss: nitrogen loss

N_rate: nitrogen application rate

N_surplus: balance of nitrogen application rate minus plant nitrogen uptake

NU: split application of normal urea

NUE: nitrogen use efficiency

N_up: plant nitrogen uptake at the maturity stage

N_{up_0}: nitrogen uptake in the non-N treatment plot

N_{up_F:} nitrogen uptake in the fertilized plot

N_{up_max}: nitrogen uptake when the brown rice yield reaches estimated yield ceiling for the location

P_br: protein content of brown rice with 15% moisture content

PCU: polymer-coated urea

Pr_crop: the price of the crop

Pr_Nfert: the price of applied nitrogen fertilizer

R_fert: reduction rate by the fertilizer of ammonia volatilization

W_p: the weight proportion of plastic polymer in the PCU per g N

Y: brown rice yield

Y₀: the yield without nitrogen application

Y_max: estimated yield ceiling for the location

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Authors' contributions

Namikawa, M.: writing original draft, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, data curation, and conceptualization; Nakajima, M.: resources and methodology; Matsunami, M. and Hasegawa, T.: writing, reviewing, editing, supervision, and methodology.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Given his role as editorial board member, Toshihiro Hasegawa had no involvement in the peer review of this article and has no access to information regarding its peer review.

Acknowledgements

We thank Mr. Shusuke Morikawa of Morikawa Farm for providing the paddy field for the experiments, Dr. Tomoki Takahashi of NARO for the analysis of soil texture and comments, and Prof. Hiroyuki Shimono of Iwate University for providing valuable comments. We are also grateful to all of our colleagues at NARO Tohoku Agricultural Research Center and the United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Iwate University for the technical supports.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crope.2024.08.001.

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