MANURING FOR MEAT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19762, 13 April 1926, Page 4

MANURING FOR MEAT.

EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND. INCREASE IN LIVE WEIGHT. • Mr J. Robb, B.Sc., district lecturer in agriculture for Leeds 'University, recently gave an interesting resume of trials, which are intended to demonstrate whether a phosphatic fertiliser like basic slag has. as much influence in improving the feeding value of herbage when used alone as when applied after a dressing of lime. The soil of the uplandish pasture, where the trials were made, is formed from a bolder clay overlaying Yeredale limestone and shale. The herbage, compared with a good deal of Yorkshire grass land, was not of a bad type. There was plenty of grass of fairly edible quality, and there was no dead mat beneath the surface. Analysis revealed that the lime requirements of the soil were from 2 to 2J tons per acre, and the Yorkshire experience has shown that where there was a lime deficiency to this extent a dressing of lime was desirable to obtain results from phosphatic applications; in other words, phosphatic dressings alone would not be so effective.

At Bank Top three plots, each 5 1-3 acres in extent, were fenced off. To gain some idea of the uniformity of the ground before the manures were applied, grazing took place with cattle and sheep during 1923, and it was found that the top plot gave the greatest live-weight increase', whereas the results from the adjoining middle and bottom plots were very similar. Therefore, when the experiments were started in the spring of 1924, the top, or No. 3 plot, was left untreated; plot No. 2 received a dressing of lump lime (containing 70 per cent, oxide of lime) at the rate of 63501 b per acre, followed by basic slag (33 1-3 per cent, phosphates and 63 per cent, soluble in citric acid) at the rate of 13401 b per acre. Plot No. 1 was dressed with slag only, at the same rate as the preceding plot. The test, therefore, resolved itself into slag versus lime plus slag, the results to be determined by live-weight increase. . On May 24, 1924, five polled heifers and eight halfbred hoggets were placed on each side of v the two treated plots, and on the untreated plot there wqre three heifers and five sheep of the same type. The live weights were taken every four weeks, and at the June weighing the average increase per head for the heifers on the untreated plot was /61b, on the lime and slag plot the average increase was 661 b, and on the slag plot it was 731 b per head. The disparity between the untreated and dressed plots might be accounted for to some extent by the fact that the lime was still on the surface during June, and hindered the grazing. At the July weighing, liowoon 1 ”’ le J* me an d slag plot was first with ™ 741 b on the untreated plot, and 6SIb per head on the slag plot • o *l le conclusion of the year’s grazing in September the total increases in the li\e weight of the heifers were:—Untreated plot, 6cwt 311 b; lime and slag plot, lOcw-t 61b; and the slag plot. 9cwt 241 b. Ihe lime and slag plot, therefore, gave a total gam of 4cwt 301 b over the untreated plot, the slag plot gave a total gain over the untreated plot of 2cwt 1051 b, and the lime and slag plot had a gain of lewt 371 b oyer the plot which received basic sla" alone. “