A field experiment was conducted in two stages under rainfed conditions at Zonal Agricultural Research Station, Navile, Shimoga in 2010 to study the nutrient uptake to graded levels of applied nitrogen (0, 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 kg ha-1) under varying N fertility strips (very low, low, medium, high and very high) to determine optimum level of N uptake. Maize yield response curves and plant N concentration curves towards applied N were fitted using curve expert software and optimum N uptake was calculated. 142 kg ha-1 was the optimum N uptake level to produce a maximum grain yield of 6835 kg ha-1 beyond which there was no response to further increase with increase in the level of the applied N under high soil fertility strip. For the low fertility strip, at the maximum economic yield of 5092 kg ha-1, optimum N uptake level would be 120 kg ha-1 and in the medium fertility strip, at the maximum economic yield of 6070 kg ha-1, optimum N uptake level would be 133.3 kg ha-1.