Elsevier

Advances in Agronomy

Volume 28, 1976, Pages 219-266
Advances in Agronomy

Use of Tracers For Soil And Fertilizer Nitrogen Research

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2113(08)60556-8Get rights and content

Publisher Summary

This chapter discusses the tracer techniques based on the use of stable isotope of nitrogen, 15N, for soil and fertilizer nitrogen research. It discusses three fundamental assumptions that are central to the use of the nitrogen isotopes as tracers in biological systems: (1) complex elements in the natural state have a constant isotope composition, (2) living systems can distinguish one isotope from another of the same element only with difficulty, and (3) the chemical identity of isotopes is maintained in biochemical systems. Various advantages and disadvantages of nitrogen tracer techniques are presented over non-tracer methods for research on nitrogen cycle processes. The advantages of 14N and I5N as tracers are derived from their inherent non-radioactivity. The use of nitrogen tracers has been restricted by the high cost of 15N and by the difficulty of performing nitrogen isotope-ratio analysis. These restrictions have been reduced by recent developments leading to reduction in the cost of 15N -enriched and 15N -depleted compounds and by improvement and simplification of techniques for nitrogen isotope-ratio analysis.

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