Effects of urease and nitrification inhibitors on nitrous oxide emissions and nitrifying/denitrifying microbial communities in a rainfed maize soil: A 6-year field observation

•A linear correlation between N2O emissions and short-term precipitation was found.•Year-round N2O emission measurement is important in boreal regions with freeze-thaw.•We attributed the higher CV of annual cumulative N2O emissions to the precipitation.•Application of inhibitors mitigated N2O emission by 26.4% in this field observation.•The N2O EF in this study was far less than the default EF of 1% proposed by IPCC.