Introduction to Organic Nitrogen Fertilizers
Natural fertilizer nitrogen is the sustainable, slow-release option for supporting healthy plant growth and improving soil health Overall, compared to synthetic fertilizers, natural fertilizer nitrogen sources are more sustainable because they are made from natural materials such as manure, compost and bone meal. This means they release nitrogen slowly to the soil, and slowly to plants. This slow rate of release is beneficial. Slow release matches more closely plant’s seasonal patterns of nutrient uptake. By contrast, some nitrogen from synthetic fertilizers can leach through the soil to groundwater and surface waters, where it can contaminate the environment and encourage harmful algal blooms.
Nitrogen is a constituent level of chlorophyll, the compound that plants use to convert sunlight into chemical energy through photosynthesis. It is also an essential part of amino acids, the atomic building blocks of proteins, which are important for both the growth and development of plants. ‘Nitrogen [is] literally the building block of photosynthesis and growth – without it, plants could not perform these fundamental processes,’ notes the organic soil scientist Sarah Watkins. ‘As a result, it is the most needed nutrient for all plants. Organic sources of nitrogen, by definition, provide this nutrient in a form that plants’ metabolism can use over time, enhancing growth, and more importantly long-term soil health.
The use of organic fertilizer nitrogen is needed to encourage the full potential for plant growth while supporting healthy, robust and sustainable soil. This introduction provides the context and background for the discussion on the significance and advantages of using organic nitrogen in agriculture.
Environmental Impact of Organic Nitrogen Fertilizers
While the environmental benefits actually come mainly from the fact that organic fertilizer nitrogen levels are naturally replenished and can decompose naturally, it’s still much lower than the carbon foot created from raw materials. For example, synthetic fertilling nutrients into streams and rivers. This overabundance of nutrients causes eutrophication, which is the overgrowth of algae and aquatic plants that deplete the water of oxygen and destroy aquatic life.
The environmental biologist Emily Brown, PhD, a University of Colorado professor, points out: ‘Organic nitrogen sources have the potential of helping to maintain nutrient levels within natural environmental ranges, which can help to minimise the drastic increases in nutrient levels associated with the degradation of water systems.’
Also, the nitrogen in organic fertilizer increases soil organic matter and biodiversity. Soil organic matter is important because it helps retain water, provides nutrients for soil microbes, improves soil structure, and increases biodiversity within the soil ecosystem. Dr Brown says: ‘As we increase organic matter content in the soils, we see a kind of cascade of benefits in terms of soil structure, biodiversity, and the overall health and relative resilience of the ecosystem to support plant systems.’
These environmental advantages are at the heart of the organic nitrogen fertilizer that helps to build sustainable agriculture not just of a healthier food production but a healthier planet. A slow, natural release of nitrogen from the organic materials can constantly nourish plants with good nutrients at that constant rate of growth, without risk to the environment.
Benefits to Soil Structure and Plant Health
Applying fertilizer nitrogen from natural sources improves soil structure and plant health, and as a result, leads to healthier and more sustainable agriculture. Many organic nitrogen sources, particularly composted manures and green manure crops, improve soil texture and aeration when applied to the soil. A noticeable benefit from finer soil structure is an increase in water and air retention. ‘Organic nitrogen helps to create a more porous soil with more pore space, which helps the roots to grow more three-dimensionally,’ says the soil scientist Linda Harris.
Furthermore, the slow release of nitrogen from organic fertilizers ensures that plants get a more consistent supply of this crucial nutrient. This stable source of plant nutrients helps plants take up nutrients more evenly, thus producing more uniform and vigorous growth. As Harris states: ‘When synthetic fertilizers are applied, there could be several surges of growth followed by crashes. Whereas organic nitrogen encourages steady overall growth, to help plants become more healthy and productive.’
Moreover, the applied organic fertilizer nitrogen will stimulate soil microbial activity, which is a keystone in nutrient cycling and, therefore, will enhance plant-available nitrogen and other nutrients. Higher soil microbial activity also reduces soil-borne disease; it therefore decreases incidences of soil-borne diseases, leading to healthier and stronger plants.
Organic nitrogen fertilizers can also transform soil structure and aid in the uptake of nutrients, protecting trees and numerous other plant species that depend on microbial symbiosis. These corporate demands coincided with new scientific and farming methods that emerged around 1700, a development that ultimately paved the way for modern agriculture. They set in motion a process that changed our planet, from the fecund.
Cost-effectiveness and Efficiency of Organic Nitrogen
The economic advantages on a farm of enhanced plant growth due to increased organic fertilizer nitrogen extend to cost-efficiency and efficiency of agricultural production. The use of organic nitrogen can be more cost-effective than synthetic fertilizer, particularly in the long run. As the agricultural economist Robert Clarkson explains: ‘Even though organic fertilizer nitrogen may be more expensive in unit cost compared with synthetic fertilizer, the long-term savings from reduced input costs and enhanced soil health can easily justify the difference.’
A comparison of organic and synthetic fertilizers illustrates this: the nutrients in synthetic fertilizer rapidly increase plant growth but must be reapplied to maintain soil fertility. For example, synthetic nitrogen compounds produced in industrial plants using the Haber-Bosch method soon get flushed out of the soil after application. By contrast, organic fertilizer improves a soil’s nutrient-holding capacity.
This efficiency is exemplified by the fact that applying some of the organic fertilizer nitrogen enables plants to take up their nutrients in a manner consistent with their natural growth cycles, ultimately promoting efficient nutrient uptake with minimal losses from leaching or runoff. What makes organic nitrogen treatment also highly practical is the fact that it works well in settings ranging from organic and other small-scale farms to those of larger conventional farms transitioning towards sustainable practices. As Dr Clarkson put it: ‘The adaptability and high efficiency of organic nitrogen can support different types of agricultural operations with the goal of enhancing both crop yield and environmental sustainability.
Organic nitrogen fertilizers are also preferable in these respects, meaning that they can be highly cost-effective, especially when taking into account the efficient delivery of nutrients that arises from the proximity to the roots of the plants. Altogether, this makes a powerful case for organic nitrogen becoming more widely used in agriculture.
Case Studies and Real-World Applications
In fact, wherever organic fertilizer nitrogen has been introduced, it has yielded the same results – better soil health and higher crop yields sustainably. In what follows, I outline a series of examples, and farmer testimonials regarding the use of organic nitrogen in various farming contexts.
In one example, a farmer co-operative in Nebraska reported increasing their corn yield from year one to five after switching to organic nitrogen sources such as composted manure and legume cover crops. ‘It was a tough first year and a half or two years at first trying to adjust to organic nitrogen, but the last two or three years have really gone through the roof with improved soil health and, the days gone by when I relied on conventional nitrogen fertilizer,’ says June Ellis, the cooperative’s agronomist.
In California, some vineyard owners are replacing volatile nitrogen fertilizers with organic nitrogen ones, to improve the quality of grapes and boost the fitness of soils. They are also applying composted organic matter and bone meal, which have greatly increased vine health and the quality of wine produced, while reducing the amount of chemicals left behind. According to a vineyard manager, Alex Martinez: ‘Using organic nitrogen definitely improved the quality of our grapes and living up to higher market demands of organic wines.
A diverse range of farmers, across the globe, have reported a successful switch to various organic nitrogen practices. In India, a group of rice farmers have been using green manure crops to fix nitrogen naturally in the soil. Comparing their crop yields against fields where synthetic nitrogen fertilizers were applied, they found that, on average, the yields of the organic fields were 20 per cent higher. Rajat Gupta, one of them, says, ‘the switch to organic nitrogen has helped reduce our costs, increase yields sustainably and improve our soil’s health year on year’.
Through these case studies and testimonials, we were able to show how organic nitrogen fertilizer works, why it’s better, and the real-world benefits for farmers. By taking the focus off ecological narratives and putting it back on economic and social sustainability, farmers can improve both the productivity and resilience of their crops while also actively contributing toward environmental conservation and economic stability.
Conclusion and Future Outlook
To summarise with a practical example, organic fertilizer nitrogen serves perfectly the Sustainable development goals in agriculture not only by facilitating higher crop yields but also by improving soil nutrition, healthier plant growth and help the environmental sustainability of the world.
While the benefit of using organic nitrogen in the soil is already significant for improving soil structure, increasing water retention and available nutrients, and increasing soil microbial biodiversity – all contributing to better plant health and higher yields in the long run – the benefits of using organic fertilizers extend beyond that because each for example increases the resilience of biological diversity in farming systems, reducing dependency on chemical inputs and pollution.
Going forward, the increasingly strong trend toward organic farming is expected to further stimulate research in organic nitrogen, with the development of new strategies for optimising application methods and formulations of fertilizers for improved and more efficient use of organic fertilizers. Advances in biotechnology and precision agriculture could further expand the potential of organic fertilizer use.
Soil microbiomes and plant-soil interactions, says the USDA-ARS research agronomist Dr Marcus Young, ‘will only become more critical to sustainable agronomic practices as we increase our understanding of them’. He predicts that new technologies will enable farmers to better ‘match nutrient demand with fertilizer supply’ – a reference to organic fertilizers. ‘For example, meat-processing and butchering waste will be a much more sustainable source of all the nutrients needed by a crop than nitrogen fertilizers alone,’ he told me. ‘We will be able to configure organic fertilizers to match crop demand.’
This conclusion stresses the need to switch to organic nitrogen fertilizers as one measure in a holistic strategy to ensure national food security, environmental safety and sustainable development in the present and future of agriculture. In the light of global issues linked to man-made and natural catastrophic processes such as climate change and degradation of soils, sustainable agriculture is more important than ever.
Here are some scholarly references about organic fertilizer nitrogen：
- Weiwen Li and Yi Zhu (2023) conducted a meta-analysis exploring the impact of different fertilizer applications on soil aggregate stability. Their findings suggest that organic fertilizer applications have a significant positive effect on the mean weight diameter of soil aggregates, indicating improved soil structure compared to no-fertilizer or chemical fertilizer applications. This supports the benefits of using organic fertilizer nitrogen for enhancing soil quality.
- Biological Research (2023) discusses the fate of nitrogen in agriculture and the environment, emphasizing the need to improve nitrogen use efficiency. The study covers the transformation of nitrogen in soil and its impact on crop yield and environmental health. This article also touches on the use of various nitrogen fertilizers and their effects on nitrogen dynamics in agricultural settings.
- Frontiers in Environmental Science provides an in-depth analysis of how organic and conventional farming practices influence soil health and nutrient density. The review highlighted differences in microbial communities due to the use of organic versus synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, affecting nutrient cycling and soil structure.
