NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS

Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 6

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS

■ As tin season for planting potatoes has again come round, the -cPotato buhd of experiments in Eximrtarcat*. manuring crops which have recently been carried out In Ireland may be of interest to' 'aimers and «wnfi» of potatoes. The experiments were conducted at numerous centres in order to obtain as imz as possible an average trial which would give more reliable result 6. ••■ During 1907 these experiments were carried out at 49 centres, and at 23 centres in 1906, under the direct supervision of the Comity Agricultural > Instructor of the Department of Agriculture, Ireland. In the details, the character .of toe soil and the variety of potato grown at each centre were .given; but for drawing conclusions the report states it woujtf be safer to be guidsd in the- main by the average results, and according to tifese the best results have been obtained from a dressing of 15 tons of farmyard manure, supplemented by lewt sulphate of ammonia, 4ewt superphosphate, levrt muriate of potash, - which is equal to an application ot 6:rwt of a, complete *s<rtilteer containing 6£ per oeat.« of ammonia, 17 per oent. soluble pihosphate, 8 per cent, potash. To test fee expediency of applying • larger dressings, of faarinyond manure, one plot at each centre was dressed with 20 tons and tested sg&inst anotcer' plot at each ceutre with 1$ tons.- The yield was practically the iaaaa, demonstrating that exoes- ■ «iv« quantities do not afford a proportionate advantage^ The question of toe best t iorm of potash was afeo tested -on • series oi plot*, sutphaie of potash be rug tried against mari&te of potash. Tbe most profitable mauiis were prod Hoed/ by the muriate, the average esfamoted profit per acre being .gjvon «s'i9 when muriate was «6ed with the ■ Ammonia, -and phospftate, agains; £8 8s when sulphate of potash, was -earployed. ' Kainit ' is not -ooaeiderea suitable lor potato cultivation, as its action on the quality of ifce tubers is unfavourable. As a rule, the report states, sulphate 'of potash is considered , the safest for the production of good- "cooting" quality, and thai; wfaen' yotatoes were , boiled tha writer mentioned mat he could tell whether the crop bad been manured •with sulphate or muriate of potash, as the eulphate produced a finer flavour. One frequently hears the remark (jhat ooncentroted fertilisers will CaltlMtfcHi supply all tbe necessary the Best plant food required to mamMrtSllter. ' win the fertility of the soil. . / "To a orrtam extent this may h* true ; but is there no*' a danger of pinning too much fartH on different applied aids of fertility and neglecting another most essential one in the active cultivation of rh-j ground? Farmers have Tueea .made familiar with the possibilities of elec tricity towards land fertilising, and liteo bacterine may in the future- do as much for us in the eucoessfin growing of irops ; but the practical tmd well-known *id of fertility should not be overlooked which is the active cultivation of tha soil. AU tillera of the soil should remember that crops cannot be successfully grown by manure alone, ami if.iheio is anything really faulty in the actual working of the soil, fertilisers will .not entirely ma&e up the deficiency. In o&der to grow .seed crops la^id must be clean and properly worked and -~tiie idsa often, held that an extra' outlay in EertiKeers will make up for indifferent cnltivaticm :s „ >ertamly a wrong one. One often sees crops being put in on. tend that is far from clean and badly worked, and when the owners are questioned on the subject they excuse themselves by saying that they have supplied an extra dressing of fertilisers to make up for the unfavourable conditions. Good cultivation of the soil i 6 the best fertiliser, qs all successful fanners knoip, and stint- - ing labour aod spending perhaps lavishly op. " fertilisers is, 'not good farming and wrong in. principle, because the most is not got oi'-t oi the fertiliser if the cultivation of the land is faulty and the soil not well worked before the crop is sown Some useful information has recently come - to h*nd from the " Biological Diseases Branch of. the Department of Fl«ld of Agriculture with referGrain trass. 01103 to the diseases usually prevalent amongst csieal crops, which shows that tho usual dieea&sa in wheat and oat crops were not so much in evidence last year as in many former years. This may be accounted foi by the dry spring acd early summer, which helped to prevent -tiie establishment of fungus disees-3 sufficiently early to cause any great loss; but in-.certain districts .where a heavier rainfall was experienced many crops suffered from the attacks of both rust and smut. Mr Kirk states that as the resnlt of recent researches on tine life history of smut fungi some useful knowledge has been gained. The form of the fungi causing smut in grain is "stated to be of a very peculiar kind, and generally commences its activity when the plant is very young, and, following the growth of the, young plant, keeps develop--ing in the delicate growing parts and dies behind the mature tissues. If affected

plants ar« carefully examined the presence of the fungus will only be noted in the growing parts, all other parts of the plants bo ing p-srfectly healthy and normal When, tha young grains are ■commencing to form, the smut microbe develops rapidly in these tissues, and completely destroys them, forming in their place immense numbers of coal Black spores, which blow about very readily*with every gu6t of wind. It has long been considered that the »m*t fungi - only enter the plant when it is in the seedling state, accomplishing this by means of the spores that may be adhering to the seeds, and for. this reason the steeping of the seed grain in some material which would kill these 6pores has been th* almost universal mode of treatment, and, as we know, the usual method of steeping grain fo*" seed is either by the formalin or bluestone solution. It has been further mentioned that when an oat plant is affected all the heads and all the grains in each bead become smutted, so that the entire plai*t, so far ac e&eding power is concerned, is quite destroyed. At first the presence of the fungus stimulates the growth the plant, which thereby attains maturity quicker than healthy ones, co that when a crop is harvested, the smutted heads are often not noticed, and the crop is looked upoc as quite healthy. In reality, however, as much a» 10 per -cent, or more may have been destroyed. It has been proved that those spores that fall on the ground can beep olive for a considerable time, so that it is extremely dangerous to grow oat crops twice on the same ground without -allowing an interval of at least two seasons between each sowing. The principle of the control of oat-smut is to kill all the spores that may be attached to the seed that i« tojw used for sowing. Steeping in iovßueJm solution . pi\l accomplish this, as by this 1 method the spores - are . kiUed -off, and th*- grains them»e,l»* are not -injured, and furthermore the vitality of the resulting crop is increased. AGRICOLA. '