Effect of Fertilizer Deep Placement on Rice and Soybean Yield Using Newly Developed Device for Deep Fertilization

Nitrogen fertilizer is an essential macronutrient that requires repeated input for crop cultivation. Excessive use of nitrogen fertilizers can adversely affect the environment by discharging NH₃, NO, and N₂O into the air and leaching into surrounding water systems through rainfall runoff. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a technology that reduces the amount of nitrogen fertilizer used without compromising crop yields. Fertilizer deep placement could be a technology employed to increase the efficiency of nitrogen fertilizer use. In this study, a deep fertilization device that can be coupled to a tractor and used to inject fertilizer into the soil was developed. The deep fertilization device consisted of a tractor attachment part, fertilizer amount control and supply part, and an underground fertilizer input part. The fertilization depth was designed to be adjustable from the soil surface down to a depth of 40 cm in the soil. This device injected fertilizer at a speed of 2,000 m²/hr to a depth of 25 to 30 cm through an underground fertilizer injection pipe while being attached to and towed by a 62-horsepower agricultural tractor. Furthermore, it had no difficulty in employing various fertilizers currently utilized in agricultural fields, and it operated well. It could also perform fertilization and plowing work, thereby further simplifying agricultural labor. In this study, a newly developed device was used to investigate the effects of deep fertilizer placement (FDP) compared to those with urea surface broadcasting, in terms of rice and soybean grain yields. FDP increased the number of rice grains, resulting in an average improvement of 9% in rice yields across three regions. It also increased the number of soybean pods, resulting in an average increase of 23% in soybean yields across the three regions. The results of this study suggest that the newly developed deep fertilization device can efficiently and rapidly inject fertilizer into the soil at depths of 25 to 30 cm. This fertilizer deep placement strategy will be an effective fertilizer application method used to increase rice and soybean yields, in addition to reducing nitrogen fertilizer use, under conventional rice and soybean cultivation conditions.