Nitrogen Management Strategies to Improve Yield and Dough Properties in Hard Red Spring Wheat

Abstract

Core Ideas Dividing a tillering N application into tillering and heading reduced wheat yield. Additional late‐season N application increased wheat protein concentration and dough quality. Late‐season N applications are economically unfit unless there is a reward for protein. Wheat yield and quality response to N management was similar across cultivars. There are opportunities to improve N management for wheat yield and quality in Southern Brazil. Nitrogen supply, environment, and cultivar determine yield and dough properties of hard red spring wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.); however, the effects of broadcasting N fertilizer at heading, a growing practice in regions such as southern Brazil, have not been explored. The objectives of this study were to: (i) compare the current producer practice vs. alternative fertilizer N management strategies and (ii) quantify their interaction with cultivar and their effects on yield and its components and relevant dough properties. Field experiments were conducted using a complete factorial arrangement in a split‐plot design of three cultivars (main plots) and five N strategies (subplots) across three environments in southern Brazil. Overall, the current producer practice (all 70 kg N ha −1 applied at tillering) was appropriate to the targeted yield (3.5 Mg ha −1 ); splitting this fertilizer N rate into tillering and heading applications (either 35 kg N ha −1 on tillering + 35 kg N ha −1 on heading or 45 kg N ha −1 on tillering + 25 kg N ha −1 on heading) benefited protein concentration but reduced yield. Best N management resulted in the addition of one late‐season N application (70 kg N ha −1 on tillering + 23 kg N ha −1 on heading) positively impacting yield, protein concentration, dough extensibility, and alveogram index. In‐season N management is more relevant for grain quality than yield, more importantly if deductions from low protein are projected, or if premiums from increasing protein concentration exist, justifying a late‐season fertilizer N application.