CULTIVATING TURNIPS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 559, 16 April 1913, Page 2

CULTIVATING TURNIPS.

PREVENTING "FINGER AND TOE."

A report on a set of experiments carried out with the object of testing the effect of the application of substances which have the reputation of being useful in warding off attacks of the turnip disease known aB "finger and toe" has been issued recently by the Prof, of Agriculture at the West of Scotland Agricultural College. Mr R. P. Wright.

These materials are lime in different forms, sulphate of copper, and kainit. The experiments were made on turnips grown in a field poor in lime and very much infested with the disease. The report embodies full details of the results obtained, and the conclusions arrived at are well worth noting. They are:—

1. The destruction of the turnip crop by the disease known as "finger and toe" can to a certain extent be prevented by the application of suitable dressings of lime. 2. On land much infected dressings of lime of less than two tons per acre cannot be relied en to produce much effect.

3. On land much infected applications of'four tons per acre are more euccessful, but will not entirely destroy the disease or save the crop. 4. Lime applied in the drills in spring is much less effective in preventing the disease than when put on the land in the preceding autumn. 5. Small dressings of lime applied either in autumn or in spring have little effect on the disease. 6. Lime slaked in small heaps by atmospheric moisture is distinctly less effective in preventing the disease than the same lirrm (CaO) slaked by pouring water over it when fresh from the kilns, and spreading over the land while it still remains in a caustic condition.

7. Ground lime is more expensive, and no more effective than an equal quantity of properly slaked lime. 8. Sulphate of copper applied at the rate of half a ton per acre hag no im mediate effect in saving the turnip crop from the "finger and toe" attack, but is ultimately injurious to the disease fungm. 9. Kainit applied in the same quantity in spring to the turnip crop has no effect in protecting it from a "finger and toe" attack, but its subsequent action in the soil is detrimental to the "finger and toe" fungus, and beneficial to succeeding turnip crops.