Nitrogen fertilisation management in precision agriculture: a preliminary application example on maize

The adoption of precision agriculture techniques for N management has the potential for improving agronomic, economic and environmental efficiency in the use of such input. The present work was aimed at testing a simplified N balance method for the prescription of N fertilisation in uniform management zones defined from information on measured soil properties on grain maize in central Italy. The results of this preliminary experience show that the application of the N balance prescription map did not bring to significant differences, from a uniform N fertilisation, in terms of grain yield, economic return above N cost and nitrate content in the soil profile at the end of the growing season. However, the adoption of the prescribed N fertilisation strategy for the whole field would have caused a limited saving in the amount of fertiliser employed, quantified at about 10 kg N ha-1.