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Essay on nitrogen pollution
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Nitrogen as a Fertilizer, Nutrient, or Pollutant
Nitrogen can always be a fertilizer, nutrient, or pollutant depending on the circumstances and the environment it is in. As a fertilizer, nitrogen can be extremely useful in aiding the growth of many plants. As a nutrient, nitrogen is essential to many plants growth and survival. As a pollutant, nitrogen can not only affect the plant at the given time but be very detrimental many years down the road. No matter where you go nitrogen will always be either a fertilizer, nutrient, or pollutant.
Nitrogen can be considered as both a fertilizer and nutrient under the right constraints. I will use citrus plants as one of my examples. For citrus growers applying nitrogen to plants is a common and needed practice. “Spring is the best time to apply nitrogen to citrus. Research has shown that the demand for nitrogen in citrus is highest from bloom through June and most of the supplemental nitrogen fertilizer should be applied during this time period.” It is a major key to plant growth and development. Nitrogen is crucial to citrus plants for optimal growth and yield. Without nitrogen you can see suffering results for many years down the road.
Citrus responds readily to nitrogen nutrition. Current and past research shows that if nitrogen is maintained in fall-sampled citrus leaves between 2.4 and 2.6 % on a dry-weight basis for oranges, and between 2.2 and 2.4 % for lemons, a good balance is struck between yield, size and fruit quality. The evidence linking nitrogen to puff, crease, smaller fruit size and staining does exist, but these negative effects are most significant at nitrogen levels greater than 2.6 % nitrogen. Some growers have decreased nitrogen applicati...
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...le harming crops up to 8 years later. Nitrogen is an important element, whether it is in water or some other form, but either way it can easily be a vicious pollutant.
What category do you think nitrogen should be in--fertilizer, nutrient, or pollutant? Should you take into account how much nitrogen can help a plant like with fruit size or yield? Or should you weigh heavily on how much nitrogen can hurt a plant and for such an extended period of time? There are many ways to dispute either of these choices for or against but none of them are a perfect fit.
Works Cited
Craig Kallsen. http://cekern.ucdavis.edu/Custom Program143/Citrus Nitrogen Fertilizer.htm.
Power, Sally A.; Green, Emma R.; Barker, Chris G.; Bell, J. Nigel B.; Ashmore, Mike R. "Ecosystem recovery: heathland response to a reduction in nitrogen deposition." Global Change Biology 12
For citrus growers in Florida, the future is uncertain. Two bacterial diseases, named citrus canker and citrus greening disease, have devastated countless acres of trees across the state. For an industry that “generates about $8.9 billion a year,” this is no small issue (“Citrus Greening”). The Florida Citrus Grower’s Association would like to import a landrace of orange discovered in China that is resistant to citrus greening disease and test it in Florida to discover its effects on both citrus canker and greening. Although there are advantages to importing a resistant form of citrus, the risks greatly outweigh the potential benefits, and for this reason, the Association should begin to place its efforts towards the many alternative methods of control that are available.
My group, fertilizer group 3, is testing the variables of plant color and number of leaves. Fertilizer can affect that drastically! Those two variables are basically what determine a healthy plant. Fertilizer can help to boost the minerals in the soil and give the plant what it needs to survive and be healthy.
One of the major sources of nitrates in groundwater is caused by agricultural activities, including chemicals applied to crops and waste from livestock production (Ready, R., & Henken, K.). The main problem with livestock waste and chemicals is their tendency to diffuse in water, which means they cannot be easily contained or pinpointed to the source. According to a study by the Great Plains Agricultural Council, agricultural land is the largest contributor of non-point source pollution to natural water resources in the High Plains region and throughout the United States. In this survey they found that Nitrate-N was the most commonly detected agricultural chemical in surface and groundwater (Elrashidi, M., Mays, M., Peaslee, S., & Hooper, D.)
essential in the production of plants; but, nitrate, a nitrogen and oxygen compound, can be
form of nitrogen, harms organisms such as fish. Ammonia is also a major contributor to
Nutrients are substances that all living organisms need for growth and reproduction. Two major nutrients which are nitrogen and phosphorus occur naturally in water, soil and air. Nutrients are present in animal and human waste and chemical fertilizer. But, if the nutrients are in excessive amount, it will tend to cause nutrients pollution towards the environment. The over-development in agriculture and industrial area had accelerated the rate at which the wastewater containing excessive nutrients (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) entering ecosystem without proper controlling system. There are many primary sources of nutrient pollution that will eventually create the eutrophication effect.
Nitrogen is one of the most important nutrients in growing a barley crop. Excess nitrogen leaching through soil is also a major contributor to groundwater pollution. Many factors and calculations are needed in balancing environmental concerns from excess nitrogen, with the need for enough nitrogen to reach the crop’s highest potential yield. There has been extensive research done to find the correct nitrogen application levels by universities and private organizations. Even with all this research there are still human decisions and differing professional and lab opinions that make this decision complex.
It is clear that current unsuitable handling of N fertilizers may be responsible for NO3-N contamination of both surface water and soil water (Wang et al. 1996). Yield goal as N based recommendation usually represent large geographic areas. According to (MOA 2004) they provide a N recommendation for corn that is a linear function of yield goal. Although these recommendations are generally suitable, they may lead to over application of N as hybrids and environment change. Corn grain yield has been significantly increased by varying N rate from 190 to 380 kg N ha-1 (El-Hendawy et al. 2008). A positive response for grain yield has been reported by (Halverson and Reule 2006) up to 285 kg N ha-1 while maximized at 180 kg N ha-1 in another study (Lamm et al. 2001). Determining N recommendation could be further improved by considering field-specific soil-crop-climate conditions along with different hybrids and Bio-fertilizers effects.
Nitrogen is vital in our world. About four fifths of the air we breathe is nitrogen. Most importantly, nitrogen is one of the most important elements because it is the base of the food web and it is involved in a fundamental cycle. Free nitrogen in the air is absorbed by plants and converted to plant proteins. It is then eaten by animals that convert it to animal proteins and return it to the soil as nitrogen waste. Then bacterial action causes the nitrogen compounds to become free nitrogen again. Thus, plants need nitrogen to survive, the animals need the plant proteins to survive, and we in turn need animals and plants to survive.
The environment is stabilized by the biogeochemical cycles. Biogeochemical cycles are the processes that occur naturally and recycle the nutrients in different chemical forms from the non-living ecosystem to living organisms and then back to the non-living ecosystem. Biogeochemical cycles consist of five cycles which are iron cycle, sulphur cycle, phosphorus cycle, nitrogen cycle and carbon cycle. The most important and complex of biogeochemical cycles is the nitrogen cycle (Botkin & Keller, 2012). Nitrogen cycle allows the various nitrogenous species to cycle among the inert nitrogen gas in the atmosphere and soil (Newton, 1999). According to Newton (1999), “the nitrogen gas molecule is fixed by either natural processes, which include both biological and non-biological (lightning, combustion and volcanism) systems, or man-made processes (mainly industrial ammonia production)” (p. 1). There are four processes in the nitrogen cycle, namely nitrogen fixation, decomposition, nitrification, and lastly, denitrification (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).
Nutrient are important for plant growth. These are also called essential elements and required for the plant to complete its life cycle. Nutrients are important for growth and development of crop, promotes vegetative and reproductive growth, provides protection against many devastating pathogens that is responsible for the yield loss in many economically important crop. Sixteen important nutrients are vital for plant growth. These are
One of the reasons for loss in biodiversity is alteration of habitats. A habitat is the natural environment in which a species of living organism lives. If the habitat of a species is changed, it will cause the species to die or migrate to other places where it can find its natural habitat. There are many ways in which the habitat of plants and animals can be altered. One of them is land use changes. Since the beginning of human life, human beings have been changing land use for farming. Large areas of forests have been cleared by humans to increase the area of farming to satisfy their growing needs. Many biodiversity-rich landscape characteristics have been lost due to intensive farming (Young, Richards, Fischer, Halada, Kull, Kuzniar, Tartes, Uzunov & Watt, 2007). For example, traditional farming was replaced by private farms in Europe after the First World War causing an immense change in land use patterns. Another major proble...
Nutrient providence is an important factor in plant growth. It determines the health of the plant and its overall longevity.
Nitrogen is an essential element in the bodies of living organisms. Nitrogen atoms are found in all proteins and DNA. Nitrogen exists in the atmosphere as N₂ gas. In nitrogen fixation, bacteria convert N₂ into ammonia a form of nitrogen which is usable by plants. When animals eat the plants, they consume the nitrogen compounds. Nitrogen is a common limiting nutrient found within the nature, and agriculture. A limiting nutrient is the nutrient generally limits the growth. When fertilizers containing chemicals such as N₂ and P₂ are carried into sea bodies, they can result in blooms of algae and this is called eutrophication.
One study has shown that the application of nitrogen fertilizer on off season cover crops can increase the biomass of these crops, while having a beneficial effect on soil nitrogen levels for the cash crop planted during the summer season