VALUE OF BORAX ON GUMLAND SOILS

Northern Advocate, 2 August 1949, Page 4

VALUE OF BORAX ON GUMLAND SOILS

PROOF of the efficacy of traces of borax on gumland pastures is limited to the Wharekohe soil type, which is typical gumland. Its effect on other types of soil will not be proved until the Department of Agriculture has carried out experiments in the field on all gumland soil types, including the Wharekohe soil. Mr C. F. Sutherland, of the Soil Bureau, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, said this in an interview at Whangarei today

While the trial at Wharekohe indicated success, Mr Sutherland said, the use of borax for other soils could not be recommended in specific quantities until the results of field experiments were published in the Journal of Agriculture.

section of the Soil Bureau now had to be confirmed in the fieid by the Department of Agriculture, and full information would be published when this work was completed, he added. As the Wharekohe soil is typical of northern gumland, Mr Sutherland is confident that the discovery of borax as one of the missing trace elements is a big step towards solving the gumlaod problem.

The quantities fr different crops on Wharekohe soil types were established from a series of tests supervised bv the chief biologist to the department <Mr A. C. S. Wright), and until similar tests have been carried out in the field it will not be possible for officers of the bureau or the department to provide information on recommended quantities for all the strongly leached soils derived from sedimentary rocks. TO 20LB PEK ACRE From the pot trials it had been shown that crops would require from five to 201 b of borax per acre. Mr Sutherland emphasised that an no account should applications of more than 201 b per acre be made in any pasture work until fur her information was available. The initial results' which had been obtained from pot trials by the biotic