Sulphur and Potato Blight

Horowhenua Chronicle, 28 February 1914, Page 4

Sulphur and Potato Blight

During the past two seasons (says the Mark Lane Express) experiments have been directed to the difficult question of finding some means 'of freeing contaminated land from the potato blight. Various applications were tried, sueh as an extra application of superphosphate, an extra application of sulphate of potash, and a muriate of potash. In one plot each tuber was planted in a handful of wet sawdust, and another plot received flower of sulphur at the rate of 61 cwt. per acre. The best result was obtained from the sulphur, where not only was the amount of disease reduced to less than one-half of that in the untreated plot*, but the total yield was higher than in any other case. This result confirms previous experiments carried out at Clifden which have always shown that sulphur added to the soil in creases the yield of potatoes and diminishes the attack of pests. Similar results have been obtained by workers elsewhere as regards the increase of crop with potatoes and other plants when sulphur is applied to the soil, and they are interesting in connection witli the modern question of the effects of .partial sterilisation or disinfection of soils on the yieltls of the resulting crops, with which, however, it would be out of place to deal here.