Scientia Horticulturae 127 (2011) 452–454

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Scientia Horticulturae
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scihorti

Short communication

Mobilization of nitrogen in the olive bearing shoots after foliar application of urea
R. Fernández-Escobar ∗ , J.M. García-Novelo, H. Restrepo-Díaz 1
Departamento de Agronomía, Universidad de Córdoba, Edificio C 4, Campus Universitario de Rabanales, Ctra, Madrid-Cádiz km, 396, 14071 Córdoba, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Mature ‘on’ and ‘off’ ‘Manzanillo’ olives trees with three healthy branches of 10–12 cm in diameter were
Received 18 June 2010 selected to determine changes in nitrogen levels in the bearing shoots after foliar application of urea.
Received in revised form Each selected branch of each tree received one of the following treatments: (i) control without urea
23 September 2010
application; (ii) foliar application of urea to all the current-season leaves; and (iii) foliar application of
Accepted 18 October 2010
urea to all the one-year-old leaves. Urea was applied in May, four days after full bloom in the ‘on’ year
trees. Each treated leaf was immersed in a test tube containing a 4% urea solution and 0.1% Tween 20 for
Keywords:
5 s. Bearing shoots, composed of both one-year stems and leaves and current-season stems and leaves,
Olea europaea
Foliar diagnosis
were collected at intervals from the beginning of the experiment until 64 days after urea application.
Leaf analysis Nitrogen was determined in stems and leaves from each part of the bearing shoot, and in fruits during
Foliar fertilization the ‘on’ year. Nitrogen uptake from the leaves was rapidly mobilized from the older to the current-season
Olive nutrition leaves of the bearing shoot, and thereafter to other storage organs of the tree or to the fruit, which is the
largest nitrogen sink in the bearing shoot. No translocation of nitrogen from the current-season leaves to
older leaves was observed. The rapid translocation of nitrogen from the younger leaves to other storage
organs of the tree could explain the insensitivity of leaf analysis to detect excess nitrogen, since mature
leaves from current-season shoots must be sampled to determine the nutritional status of the tree. The
failure of leaf analysis to detect excess nitrogen may be a cause of nitrogen over-fertilization in olive
orchards.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Nitrogen is the mineral element required in highest quanti-
ties by crops and, therefore, constitutes the basis of fertilization
programmes for horticultural crops. A study carried out in olives
(Olea europaea L.) growing in the Mediterranean basin, showed
that nitrogen is present in most fertilizer applications, even when
potassium constitutes the major nutritional disorder (Fernández-
Escobar, 2008a). Presently, there is evidence that many olive
orchards are over-fertilized with nitrogen, causing numerous prob-
lems in both the tree and the soil (Fernández-Escobar et al., 2009).
Leaf nutrient analysis is used for diagnosing tree nutritional sta-
tus and, consequently, for determining fertilization requirements
(Shear and Faust, 1980; Benton Jones, 1985). Leaf analysis is good
for diagnosing N deficiency, but is insensitive to N excesses caused
by N over-fertilization (Weinbaum et al., 1992), which constitutes
one of the main nutritional problems in olive growing, as indicated
above. Much information is available on the translocation and dis-
tribution of nitrogen in fruit trees (Kato, 1986; Titus and Kang, 1982)
and grapes (Roubelakis-Angelakis and Kliewer, 1992). Evergreen
trees store nitrogen in perennial plant parts, including the leaves
(Kato, 1986; Klein and Weinbaum, 1984). This nitrogen is mobilized
throughout the plant in spring to support new growth, and the new
leaves also accumulate nitrogenous compounds during the grow-
ing season. However, little is known about these processes in olive
trees that can explain the insensitivity of leaf analysis to excess
nitrogen; otherwise, this could contribute to a better diagnosis of
tree nitrogen status in order to rationalize the fertilization practice.
Bearing in mind that foliar nitrogen application is a common prac-
tice in olive growing, mainly in orchards under rain-fed conditions
(Fernández-Escobar, 2008b), the aim of this work was to study N
changes in olive-bearing shoots after foliar application of nitrogen
during the ‘off’ and ‘on’ years.
2. Materials and methods

The experiment was carried out at “Alameda del Obispo” Exper-

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 957 218 498; fax: +34 957 218 569.
E-mail address: rfernandezescobar@uco.es (R. Fernández-Escobar).
1
Present address: Faculty of Agronomy, National University of Colombia, Bogotá,
Colombia.
imental Farm in Cordoba, Spain. The average annual rainfall in
this area is 535 mm. Twenty-five-year-old ‘Manzanillo’ olive trees,
spaced at 7 m × 7 m with support irrigation during dry periods,
were selected. Four ‘off’ and four ‘on’ year trees with three healthy
branches of 10–12 cm in diameter were selected for the experi-

0304-4238/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.scienta.2010.10.006
 R. Fernández-Escobar et al. / Scientia Horticulturae 127 (2011) 452–454 453

‘OFF’ ‘ON’
A Current-season’s leaves B Current-season’s leaves

1.8 1.8

1.6 1.6

1.4 1.4
Leaf N Concentration (% D.W.)

1.2 1.2

1.0 1.0

C One-year-old leaves D One-year-old leaves

1.8 1.8

1.6 1.6

1.4 1.4

1.2 1.2

1.0 1.0

0h

16 d
24 h

64 d
8d
16 d
0h

24 h

64 d

2h
8d

2d

32 d
2h

6h

4d
2d

32 d
6h

4d

Time after foliar application of urea

Fig. 1. Evolution of N concentration in current-season leaves and in one-year-old leaves from control branches (䊉), from branches that received urea only in the current-season
leaves (), and from branches that received urea only in one-year-old leaves (), in ‘on’ and ‘off’ olive trees.

ment. Each treatment was applied to one of the three selected
branches of each tree, and consisted of: (i) control (without nitrogen
application); (ii) foliar application of nitrogen to all the current-
season leaves; and (iii) foliar application of nitrogen to all the
one-year-old leaves. Foliar applications were performed in the
early morning and consisted of immersing each leaf in a test tube
that contained a 4% (w/v) urea solution and Tween 20, a non-ionic
surfactant (Probelte, Murcia, Spain), at a concentration of 0.1% (v/v)
for 5 s.
Shoot samples were collected from the ‘off’ year trees at the
beginning of the experiment (7th May), the day of the foliar appli-
cation of urea (13th May), 2, 6 and 24 h after foliar application, and
2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 days after foliar application of urea. For trees
in the ‘on’ year, the experiment began three days after full bloom
(18th May). Samples were also collected at the beginning of the
experiment, the day of foliar application of urea (19th May), 2, 6
and 24 h after treatment, and 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 days after foliar
application of urea.
The olive-bearing shoot consisted of two portions: one com-
posed of a one-year-old stem bearing one-year-old leaves and fruits
during the ‘on’ year, and the other composed of a current-season
stem and leaves. Once in the laboratory, both portions of the bearing
shoot were removed, the leaves, stems, and fruits were separated,
and the leaf number and fresh weight of each portion were deter-
mined. The leaves, stems and fruits were washed with 0.03% Triton
X-100, rinsed in deionized water, dried at 80 ◦ C for 48 h, weighed,
ground, and stored in an oven at 60 ◦ C until analysis. Nitrogen was
determined by the Kjeldahl procedure.
3. Results and discussion
In ‘off’ year trees, the nitrogen concentration of current-season
leaves increased slightly during the four days after foliar applica-
tion of urea to both current-year and one-year-old leaves (Fig. 1A).
Thereafter leaf N concentration decreased to reach similar values
to the control, which did not change significantly in N concen-
tration during the experiment. Similar results were observed in
the ‘on’ year trees, although leaf N concentration did not differ
from the control after four days of the treatment (Fig. 1B). These
results suggest that (i) foliar-applied urea increases N concentra-
tion in younger leaves for a few days after treatment, and N is
subsequently translocated to other parts of the tree and (ii) there
is rapid N translocation from treated mature leaves to untreated
younger ones. Olive leaves are a major reserve of N (Klein and
Weinbaum, 1984), which is stored in greater amounts during the
‘off’ year in the new leaves (Fernández-Escobar et al., 2004). This
could explain the translocation of N from mature to younger leaves
after foliar application of urea. On the other hand, N translocation
from current-season leaves to other parts of the tree four days after
urea application may indicate a saturation of N in these leaves and
the need to store N in other organs. This could also explain why the
N concentration in one-year-old leaves only increased when these
leaves were treated with urea (Fig. 1C and D), and no transloca-
tion occurred from current-season leaves to these leaves. A similar
pattern of N evolution was observed when the N content of the
whole shoot was considered (data not shown). The accumulation
of N in the current-season growth was due to both foliar urea appli-
cations to the shoot, and N translocation from the one-year-old
shoot. The effect was also more evident during the ‘off’ year. Fruit
N concentration was usually higher in shoots that received foliar
applications of urea than in the control, particularly during the 16
days following the treatment (Fig. 2). No clear differences between
the kinds of leaves treated were observed. Since olive trees only
flower in one-year-old wood, this means that the fruit is a strong
sink for N, as previously reported (Fernández-Escobar et al., 2004),
and explains the differences observed in leaf N concentration and
in shoot N content between the ‘off’ and ‘on’ year trees. Accord-
454 R. Fernández-Escobar et al. / Scientia Horticulturae 127 (2011) 452–454

younger leaves of the bearing shoot and thereafter to other storage

organs, or to the fruit in the ‘on’ year. This pattern could explain the
2.0
insensitivity of leaf analysis to N excesses.
Fruit N Concentration (%D.W.)

1.8
Acknowledgements
1.6
This research was supported by the Ministerio de Educación
1.4 y Ciencia, Spain, Project No. AGL2008-02216-C02-01, and Euro-
pean Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Authors acknowledge
1.2 Instituto Andaluz de Investigación y Formación Agraria, Pesquera,
Alimentaria y de la Producción Ecológica (IFAPA) for technical facil-
1.0 ities during the development of this research.

0.8
0.6
0h 2h 6h 24 h 2d
Time after foliar application of urea
Fig. 2. Evolution of fruit N concentration in bearing shoots from control branches
(䊉), from branches that received urea only in the current-season leaves (), and
from branches that received urea only in one-year-old leaves ().
ing to these results, the insensitivity of leaf analysis to excess N
could be due to the rapid translocation of N from current-season
leaves to other storage organs of the tree, since leaf analyses are
performed after sampling mature leaves from the current-season
shoots.
4. Conclusions
Foliar application of urea, a common practice in rain-fed
olive orchards in many Mediterranean countries, was effective
in increasing the nitrogen content of the tree. Nitrogen uptake
through the leaves was rapidly mobilized from the older to the
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