Nitrogen balance in and export from agricultural fields associated with controlled drainage systems and denitrifying bioreactors

Nitrate loss from drainage tiles across the cornbelt of the upper midwestern US is a result of intensive agriculture with limited crop diversity, extensive periods of fallow soil, and the need for high fertilizer applications to corn, all located on a hydrologically modified landscape. Two methods proposed to reduce tile nitrate export are managed or controlled drainage to limit tile flow and bioreactors to enhance denitrification. Nitrogen budgets and tile flow monitoring were conducted over two- to three-year periods between 2006 and 2009. We estimated N budgets in a seed corn-soybean rotation farming system near DeLand, east-central Illinois, USA, with free (FD) and controlled drainage (CD) patterned tile systems. In addition, wood chip filled trenches (bioreactors) were installed below the CD structures, one lined with plastic and one unlined. We measured daily tile flow and nitrate-N (NO3-N) concentrations and calculated cumulative N loss from the tile water at both FD and CD areas for a period of three cropping years. We also monitored the tile flow and nitrate concentration in inlet and outlet of the bioreactor associated with a CD system and evaluated the efficiency of the bioreactor for two cropping years. Most components of the N balance were unaffected by CD (yields and therefore N harvested, surface soil denitrification), and there was a negative N balance in the soybean cropping year (−165 and −163 kg N ha−1 at FD and CD areas, respectively), whereas seed corn cropping in the following year resulted in positive N balances (29 and 34 kg N ha−1 at FD and CD areas, respectively). For two years, the overall N balances were −136 and −129 kg N ha−1 at FD and CD areas, respectively, consistent with other recent corn belt studies showing a small net depletion of soil organic N. Controlled drainage greatly reduced tile N export, with a three-year average loss of 57.2 kg N ha−1 yr−1 from FD compared to 17 kg N ha−1 yr−1 for CD. There was high uncertainty in denitrification measurements and thus the fate of missing N in the CD system remained unknown. Nitrate reduction efficiency of the bioreactor varied greatly, with periods where nearly 100% of the nitrate was denitrified. The overall efficiency of the bioreactor associated with the CD system in reducing the tile N load was 33%. When nitrate was non-limiting, the nitrate removal rate of the bioreactor was 6.4 g N m−3 d−1. Little N2O emission was found from the bioreactor bed and is not thought to be a problem with these systems. Both the tile bioreactor and controlled drainage greatly reduced tile nitrate export in this leaky seed corn and soybean agricultural field.