SUCCESSFUL CLOVER GROWING

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1686, 22 June 1904, Page 64

SUCCESSFUL CLOVER GROWING

The soils which carry clovers successfully are invariably good turnips soils. Clover, as is well-known, prefers a stiffer soil than do turnips, and many good clover soils are not regarded as being good turnip soils, because they are too heavy for sheep to consume them on the land during winter. Turnips are lime and potash loving plants, and when the soil is deficient in them they soon show signs of turnip sickness. In clover growing we must, to be successful, ever keep before us the fact that the clover plant cannot prosper without the help of bacteria. It is essential, therefore, to the active development of the nodules and their inhabiting bacteria found on the roots of clover, that we should apply lime. Lime promotes a healthy growth capable of resisting the diseases affecting clovers and turnips, but;, let me add here, comparatively little good is effected by applying lime to a crop already diseased. Indeed, in such cases as much harm as good may be 'done. There may be lime and potash in a soil, but provided they are not in a form which renders them available as plant food, they are unable tc avert sickness. This is frequently illustrated where the land is sour through want of drainage. Lime has for long been regarded as a preventive to turnip sickness, although its action is not shown immediately, and it is necessary for the conversion of nitrogen compounds into nitrates by nitrafying bacteria in the soil, as well as for the manufacture of nitrogen by the clover nodule bacteria.