POTASH AND COLD

Taranaki Daily News, 31 August 1935, Page 24 (Supplement)

POTASH AND COLD

GERMAN RESEARCH WORK. .RESISTANCE BY PLANTS. •German research workers have shown that potash increases the resistance of plants to frost, and that, therefore, the use of potash in the autumn top-dressing programme should ensure more v : " -us growth of grass in the winter and, of course, without the grass being reduced in value. W..,11. Fuchs, of Halle, is the latest research worker to prove this fact, and he entirely supports the work of Schaffnit and Wilhelm. The cell sap contains nitrogenous substai somewhat of the nature of gelatine, or the white of egg. Everyone knows how gelatine swells up with water. In the plant cell these gelatine-like nitrogenous substances are swollen up with water. Fuchs claims that his experiments show that in heavy frosts this water is frozen and the nitrogenous substances coagulate by reason ~>f the water being frozen out of them. Th’e plant cells then collapse. He finds that potash salts prevents the water from freezing so readily and thus allows the gelatinelike nitrogenous matter to hold on to it much longer.