High nitrogen (N) input is typical of irrigated intensively managed dairy pasture systems, but the plant uptake of the applied N is often low. This leads to high nitrate (NO 3 − ) accumulation in the soil which, under wet conditions, can trigger significant loss of N as nitrous oxide (N 2 O) and dinitrogen (N 2 ). We investigated the effect of soil moisture [60, 80 and 100% water filled pore space (WFPS)] and NO 3 − concentrat...