CHEN Xiaoguang author KOU Meng author TANG Zhonghou author ZHANG Aijun author Hongmin LI author text journal article 2017 Humic acid urea fertilizer (HA-N) is a new type of slow-release nitrogenous fertilizer that can enhance utilization rate of urea, and consequently increases crop yield. However, there were few researches about the effect of HA-N on the nitrogen absorption and utilization in sweet potato production. Hence, the effect of HA-N on nitrogen accumulation and distribution, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), and yield of sweet potato was studied in the field using the ¹⁵N tracer technique. Results showed that HA-N significantly increased the number of storage roots per plant and the average fresh weight per storage root, as well as the yield increased by 29.6% compared with urea fertilizer. Furthermore, nitrogen accumulation of total plant was higher under the HA-N. In addition, HA-N significantly increased nitrogen production efficiency of fertilizer and nitrogen production efficiency. Results of a ¹⁵N tracer experiment revealed that the percentage of nitrogen absorbed by plant from fertilizer increased from 31.1% to 38.7% and NUE increased from 33.5% to 44.8% with application of HA-N when compared with single N treatment, respectively. HA-N significantly increased sweet potato storage root yield, nitrogen absorption and NUE, as well as it reduced the loss of nitrogen fertilizer. nitrogen absorption and distribution; nitrogen balance; macronutrient; isotope; Ipomoea batatas [L.] Lam. 10.17221/24/2017-PSE https://pse.agriculturejournals.cz/artkey/pse-201705-0002.php https://pse.agriculturejournals.cz/artkey/pse-201705-0002.php continuing 63 5 201 206 2017 12141178 periodical academic journal