SOIL IMPROVEMENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 13 December 1938, Page 10

SOIL IMPROVEMENT

USES OF STRAW ROTHAMSTEAI* TRIALS Elaborate field experiments on' the fertilising efYcct of straw have been carried out at the Rothamstead Experimental Station, England, in recent years. It has been shown that unrotted straw alone has a depressing action on the following crops, consequently the experiments test straw plus a supplementary dressing of artificials. Used in this way. straw with artificials has done as well up to the present as farmyard manure, when the effects are followed through five successive crops. PLOUGHING IN STRAW The Rothamsted soil is excellently suited to artificial fertilisers, and in these experiments dressing of artificials applied to each crop have done rather better than either dung or straw. It is reported that British farmers who have ! themselves been testing different methods of straw disposal appear to be giving up burning in favour of return of organic matter to the soil. The depression following the turning under of raw straw was widely recognised and almost all speakers at the Rothamsted conference either applied a dose of nitrogen to the straw before ploughing under or gave a generous applicaiton of nitrogenous manure to the following crop.