Coupling effects of irrigation amount and nitrogen fertilizer type on grain yield, water productivity and nitrogen use efficiency of drip-irrigated maize

Agricultural production is facing the risk of severe water shortage, serious non-point source pollution and low water productivity (WP) and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). It is a major challenge to achieve environmentally friendly production of maize with high WP and NUE. A two-year field experiment with three irrigation levels of W1 (60% ETc, ETc is the crop evapotranspiration), W2 (80% ETc) and W3 (100% ETc), and three nitrogen (N) fertilizer types of urea (U), slow-release N fertilizer (SRF) and urea blended with slow-release N fertilizer (UNS) was conducted in 2019 and 2020, so as to quantify their impacts on the maize dry matter, N uptake and remobilization, grain yield, WP, NUE and residual soil NO3−-N. The results showed that W2 and W3 significantly increased total dry matter (8.0% and 14.7%), grain yield (19.4% and 33.0%), and NUE (1.5% and 2.2%) compared with W1. Total N uptake of maize declined by 23.2% and 9.6% under W1 and W2, leading to 11.9% and 5.8% increased of soil NO3−-N, respectively. Compared with U, UNS increased post-silking N uptake by 19.1%, thereby enhancing grain yield by 18.3%. Compared with SRF, UNS increased N remobilization from vegetative organs to grains by 15.0%, thereby resulting in 2.3% increase in grain yield. Under the same irrigation amount, UNS and SRF improved WP and NUE compared with U. W3SRF obtained the highest grain yield, with increases in grain yield by 2.4–58.8% compared with other treatments, while there was no significant difference between W3SRF and W3UNS. More importantly, UNS significantly increased grain yield and alleviated the impact of water stress on maize production under W1 and W2. In conclusion, UNS could stabilize grain yield under water-stressed conditions, while SRF could increase grain yield under full irrigation.