DILUTED FERTILIZER

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 289, 4 September 1942, Page 2

DILUTED FERTILIZER

Serpentine In Super

Dominion Special Service.

AUCKLAND, September 2.

“The policy of the Department of Agri- ; culture in forcing fertilizer companies to mix one part of serpentine with three of superphosphate will, if allowed to continue,, kill the public’s confidence in it,’’ said Mr. E. W. Yates, managing director of Arthur Yates and Company, seedsmen. He based his criticism on the bulking out and increasing of weight of superphosphate at a time when economy of labour, trucks, tyres, petrol and sacks was vital. “This is not a time for wasteful stunts to fool the farmer,” said Mr. Yates. “The idea that all superphosphate be diluted with a soft rock costing no more than lime and that the farmer be made to pay more for it than for undiluted superphosphate is obviously a very profitable idea. It is not only expensive aud wasteful to the farmer, but it impoverishes the soil of potash. Lime is a much better aud cheaper material to kill the acid and make superphosphate insoluble in water.” Farmers, said Mr. Yates, should be given the option of buying undiluted superphosphate at a higher price if costs demanded it, and it would be to their benefit aud that of the country if this were allowed. The greatest wastage by dilution would be in railage to the farmer, lorry cartage to the farm, and the extra labour involved in spreading the adulterated product. The added 25 per cent, of serpentine represented somewhere in the region of 50,000 tons of adulterant in the North Island annually. From the quarry to the fertilizer works and from the works to the farm, the wastage of labour and transport was obvious. The real reason for the compulsory addition of serpentine appeared to be that the Government was unwilling to face au increased subsidy.