LIME=DEFICIENT SOILS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 May 1939, Page 6

LIME=DEFICIENT SOILS

THE SYMPTOMS OF MALADY. MAKING LAND WARMER. Experienced farmers, in many districts' of New Zealand arp unanimous 'in their opinion that if the fertility of the soil is to be kept up to its former standard as measured by the production of economic crops, the question of treating it with suitable forms and quantities of lime must be at-tended-to (says the “New Zealand Farmer Weekly”). Soils which arc badly deficient in lime are loosely termed acid or sour, and we can recognise them as such by their failure to grow crops of barley, turnips and swedes, clover, beet, etc. Certain classes of weeds, if present rn quantity, indicate ' a necessity for treating the soil with lime, common examples of which are spqrrey, sorrel, dock and corn marigold, while if the foxglove may be seen freely present in the ditches of the farm we are provided with further information of the need for liming.

On the other hand, crops like oats, potatoes, rye, etc., can be successfully grown on sour, or aciff soils, so that a farmer should not conclude that his fields would not benefit from liming simply because he can grow .these crops well. The most obvious indication of lime deficiency in the soil is perhaps the presence of the disease, “Finger and Toe” or “Clubroot” in turnips, swedes and cabbage crops. Ayhen a dressing of lime is applied to the soil it fulfils a number of functions resulting in a beneficial way to the farmer. Heavy clay soils are made more open and friable, drainage goes on more readily and the land is warmer and more easily worked into a good tilth. It is difficult to exaggerate the value of this action of lime on the heavier soils, as it is frequently possible to secure a seedbed on limed land when the unlimed laud is still too wet to work. Even after the crop is in, heavy land remains persistently wet in winter and bakes so badly in summer that the crops often suffer in consequence. In addition to these effects lime in the soil acts as an essential plant food, for all crops, it makes the supplies of nitrogen, pofash and phosphate in the soil more available for the growing crop, it tones up the general fertility by neutralising the acid and speeding up the decay of vegetable or humus matter in the soil.