Vol. 80 No: 2

Title:
Foliar uptake and partitioning of urea-N by strawberry plants as affected by timing of supply and plant N status

Authors:
R. NESTBY and M. TAGLIAVINI

pp: 272-275

Abstract:
Foliar spraying with urea is not as common in strawberry as in many other perennial crops, but may be a good approach to improve plant N status if soil-N availability and/or root uptake are insufficient to meet short-term plant N demand. The aims of this work were to examine possible differences in uptake and partitioning of foliar-N applied to strawberry plants at anthesis (T0) or at first fruit ripening (FFR; T1), and to examine if the level of soil-N fertilisation in the Spring affected uptake and partitioning at FFR. Foliar-N was applied to both leaf surfaces as a 1% (w/v) urea solution, using urea enriched with 9.883 atomic % ¹⁵N. Measurements and analyses were carried out 5 d after application. At FFR, foliar-N was applied to plants that had received soil-N levels of 0, 55 or 110 kg ha^-1 (N0, N1 or N2). There was an effect of leaf age on the amount of urea solution adsorbed by leaves, which was higher in older than in younger leaves. Leaf-uptake of N was lower under treatment N1 at anthesis than at FFR, when an average of 99% of applied N was taken up. This was due, principally, to differences in leaf adsorption of urea solution between the two periods, with a possible minor effect of the larger leaf area at FFR than at anthesis due to differences in accumulated soil-N of 55 kg ha^-1 and 19 kg ha^-1, applied by T1 and T0 in treatment N1 respectively. At FFR, soil-N supply had no effect on the ability of leaves to absorb foliar-N. Nitrogen absorbed by leaves at the beginning of fruit harvest (FFR) was partitioned, preferentially, into the fruits; while significant amounts were retained in the leaves at anthesis. In conclusion, foliar spraying with urea represents a useful technique to increase strawberry N-content in the short period reported here.The high recovery of sprayed N indicates that this is an effective way to fertilise strawberry plants as an alternative or complement to soil-N supply.

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