An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of N formulation, application rate, and application time on corn yield and quality under Eastern Canadian conditions, to evaluate the hypothesis that application of N will increase corn grain yield and protein concentration without decreasing the total energy content. Three N formulations, each with the rates of 90, or 180 kg ha$ sp{-1}$ were applied at different times. The results indicated that the grain yield increased with increasing N fertilizer rate and with increasing numbers of N application times. N application significantly increased grain protein concentration, on both a per kernel and a dry matter basis, and protein yield. Such as, N application increased the averaged protein concentration, on a dry matter basis, of corn grain by about 8.40% as compared to the control. The protein concentration was not affected by the number of N application times before the plants were 90 cm high. Neither lipid nor non-structural carbohydrate concentration, on both a per kernel and a dry matter basis, were significantly affected by N application in most of the location-years. In addition Near infrared reflectance (NIR) was used to determine the lipid concentration in the aerial corn tissue at different growth stages. The correlation coefficients between the standard analytical method and the NIR method of lipid concentration were all above 0.95, and were significant at 0.01 level.

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