PHOSPHINE AS A FERTILISER

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28257, 20 April 1957, Page 9

PHOSPHINE AS A FERTILISER

The possibilities of using phosphine as a fertiliser are being investigated at King’s College, University of Durham. Phosphine has many obvious disadvantages; but it is more than ten times as concentrated as superphosphate, our standard arable phosphatic fertiliser. Commercial handling may not, m any case, present any more serious problems than did some of the modern phosphorus insecticides.

A preliminary glasshouse experiment on radishes and wheat showed that phosphine was not toxic to germination or growth at normal dressings, and only at a rate equivalent to 18 cwt per acre of superphosphate was some leaf discolouration noticed. Soil retention of the compound was nothing like so efficient as with ammonia; but at all normal dressings no loss to the atmosphere should be experienced.

In another glasshouse experiment with radishes, where superphosphate was applied at 0, 11 and 3 cwt per acre and phosphine at the same levels of phoshorus, there was no significant difference in the response of either total fresh matter or dry matter between the two sources of phosphorus. At the higher levels, however, the uptake of phosphorus from phosphine was almost double that from superphosphate. This suggests that soil fixation may be lower with phosphine than with superphosphate.