Fertiliser Response on Old Volcanic Soils of North Auckland

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 59, Issue 3, 15 September 1939, Page 247

Fertiliser Response on Old Volcanic Soils of North Auckland

TH E accompanying photograph serves to illustrate the standard L.P.K. trial used by the Fields Division, Department of Agriculture, throughout the Dominion for a manurial response survey over a period of the last eight years. The symbol L. stands for lime, P. for phosphate, and K. for potash. Trials similar to that illustrated have been laid down . throughout the Dominion on private farms covering many different soil and pasture types. The trials received exactly the same treatment as regards grazing, harrowing, etc.,, as the fields in which they are laid down, the only difference being that they are manured each year with the same measured quantities of fertilisers and are not topdressed by the farmer when he applies fertiliser to the fields in which they are situated. The trials are topdressed each autumn, the slag and superphosphate plots receiving 3 cwt. per acre, potash plots 2 cwt. per acre, and lime plots 1 ton per acre at time of laying down, followed by 5 cwt. per acre annually. The turfs shown in the illustration were taken from an actual trial which was laid down in 1934 on an old volcanic soil type. The treatments described have been applied annually during the five years the trial has been in progress, and the results shown in the illustration clearly define the responses obtained from these fertilisers on this, soil type. It will be seen that potash alone gives practically no response, but a slight response when used with lime. Superphosphate plus potash gives a similar response to potash alone, but with lime

this .. mixture gives an excellent response. Slag plus potash gives a good response, and with lime an excellent response. Superphosphate alone gives a very poor response, but with lime very good response, while slag alone gives a fair response, and a very good response when used with lime. The lesson to be learned from this particular trial is that lime is essential to obtain a good response from phosphates, and that both lime and phosphate are necessary to obtain an improvement from potash.

—E. B. GLANVILLE, Instructor in Agriculture, Whangarei.

Dairy Science Abstracts The first issue of the “Dairy Science Abstracts,” issued by the Imperial Bureau of Dairy Science, Reading, England, gives every indication that this new publication will prove of real value to all concerned with dairy science or with the dairy industry. The need for a satisfactory abstract journal to cover the large and growing dairy literature has been increasingly felt in recent years, and this new publication promises to fulfil this need.