USE OF FERTILISERS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19803, 19 May 1934, Page 15

USE OF FERTILISERS

SOIL AND CROP REQUIREMENTS. VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE. Investigations into the cost of running farms show that, those having a balance on the right side almost invariably have a higher expenditure on artificial fertilisers than those that show serious losses. This would seem to indicate that a liberal but judicious expenditure on manures is sound policy. Artificials are comparatively cheap, and a knowledge of soil and crop requirements, as well as types of manures available, is a valuable asset for any farmer and one that probably determines to a large extent the returns realised from expenditure in this direction.

It is really not difficult to acquire a working knowledge of fundamental principles that will be a great help to using suitable manurial dressings, an English writer points out. Such things as sugar beet, barley, clover mixtures for mowing or grazing, beans, peas and lucerne are all crops that are seriously depressed by sour conditions in the soil, and in acute cases of shortage a partial or total failure is highly probable. On sandy soils it is probable that a lime shortage is accentuated by a shortage of potash; indeed, it quite possible that the limiting factor for good crop production may be the shortage of potash more than the shortage of lime. If we also realise that such soils are often also short of organic matter, which plays a very important part as a moisture-holding medium, as well as by providing nitrogen and other plant foods, we are well on the way, he suggests, to manuring along lines reasonably expected to give best returns.

All the crops mentioned respond to potash. Therefore, mixtures of fertilisers on sandy loams should have at least 8 per cent of potash, and on really light sandy soils It is probable that a mixture containing 12 to 15 per cent of potash may be more than justified. On strong or heavy soils the case Is different. There may, or may not, be a lime shortage, but it is not likely to be associated with a serious shortage of potash. The limiting factor here may be a deficiency of available phosphoric acid. Hence the wonderful results often obtained from manures such as superphosphate, basic slag, mineral phosphate and bone manures on both grass and arable on the heavier types of soils, as well as on barley and roots on lighter land, both responding to phosphatic treatment. Nitrogen, the “steamer up,” is more often than not “conspicuous by its absence” on both light and heavy soils, more particularly on the light, the writer suggests. Most crops benefit by its inclusion in mixtures or as a direct dressing. Mangolds and potatoes can profitably make use of liberal nitrogenous manuring in addition to farmyard manure, as also can all the cabbage family, and, in particular, marrow stem kale.

The selection of manures and their relative properties and values are often rather confusing, he continues. Taking the nitrogenous group first, we can select from one of the following more or less quick-acting manures, namely, sulphate of ammonia, calcium cyanamide, and nitrate of soda. Good soot provides a useful source of slower-act-ing and less concentrated manure, and the organic manures are useful as slowacting mediums and form substitutes for farmyard manure. Sulphate of ammonia forms the source of nitrogen in the bulk of compound fertilisers and is an excellent manure for this purpose. After application, certain changes must take place before the resulting nitrates are available for the plant, hence it is not so quick-acting as nitrate of soda. Although neutral sulphate of ammonia is not acid, it still has a reaction in the soil which results in loss of calcium and the setting-in of acidity, and should, therefore, be used with care on soils short of lime, as on light-sown soils it will intensify and aggravate the adverse results of a lime shortage, and on clays will tend to make them unstable and sad. Control of Noxious Weeds The control of ragwort will probably be in the hands of county councils next year. Mr W. J. Poison, M.P. for Stratford, and Dominion president of the Farmers’ Union, informed a gathering of about 80 farmers at the annual meeting of the Urenui branch of the union recently. He explained that as the result of the initiative of the North Taranaki Provincial executive, and following a meeting of county councils in the Waikato, legislation was now being drawn up, and should be passed in time for next season, providing regulations for the control of noxious weeds by county councils. This, together with the fact that the Government was now realising its responsibilities in regard to the clearing of weeds off native and Crown lands, should considerably alleviate the menace of ragwort.

A property sale of district interest lias been effected at Glencoe, the Southland Frozen Meat Company, Ltd., having purchased the property known as Southdowns, which was farmed for many years by the Macintosh family, of Drummond, and which was lately owned by Pettigrew Bros. It Is understood (says the “Mataura Ensign”) that the Southland Frozen Meat Company intends to lime and manure the property, which consists of about 2,500 acres, and make it into a show farm.