Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1914-07-25
Fertilizers For Winter
Wheat Sections

The amount and kind of COM
mercial fertilizers to be added
where no stable or barnyard manure is
produced has been worked out very
satisfactorily by the Ohio Experiment
Station after hundreds of fertilizer
tests. These tests are applicable to a
large part of the winter-wheat re-
glon. The Ohio station describes its
experiments as follows:
Corn, oats, wheat and clover have
been grown in 4-year rotation
these crops being grown on four 10
acre fields, each crop being grown
every season.
In this experiment, manure has
been taken directly from the stable to
the held. This manure, moreover, has
been REINFORCED with phosphorus car
RED In acid phosphate or raw phos-
plate rock to make up for the phos-
phorus taken out of their feed, by the
animals producing the manure, in or
der to build up their skeletons, the
phosphate being busted in the stables
at the rate of l pound per 1000
pound animal per day. This phospha-
ted manure has been spread on the
clover sod in the fall or early winter
at the rate of about 10 tons per acre,
and plowed under for corn, the
plowed land being dressed with lime
stone Il ton per acre..
The oats receive no treatment, but
the wheat receives a complete fertili-
ger, made up of about 200 pounds
steamed bone meal, 100 pounds acid
phosphate, and 40 pounds nuriate of
potassium the fall, followed by so
pounds nitrate of soda in the spring,
or a total of 400 pounds per acre,
having the formula 4-16-5, and cost
ing about $3.50 per acre for the ma
terials, or at the rate of $3.50 per
ton.
Allowing So for handling the ma
nure, SO for the phosphate used with
it, So for the limestone, and $3.50 for
the fertilizer, the total cost of this
treatment has been $3.50 per acre for
each four-year period, or $4.38 an
nually.
The outcome of this treatment has
been an eight-year average of n
bushels of corn per acre, followed by
81 bushels of oats, 33 bushels of
wheat and 2-3 tons of hay, thus Civ
ing an increase above the unfertilized
yield of so bushels of corn, 81 bushels
of oats, and 81 bushels of wheat, and
more than three times as much hay
as has been harvested from either of
the hay crops on the untreated land.
In other words, this 40-acre tract
| is yielding more than twice as much
corn, wheat, and hay as the average
of Ohio, and nearly twice as much
oats. Of course, not all the land in
Ohio is in condition to produce such
yields. Much of it is deficient in
drainage and there are some areas
of thin, cold clay that will require not
only drainage, but also such treat
ment as will increase the supply of
vegetable matter in the soil, before
any system of fertilizing can have its
full effect But the response which is
being given by soils in other parts of
the state to certain parts of the
treatment above described is suffi-
cient to show that the yield of the
great majority of Ohio farms may be
very materially increased by meas
ures which will be abundantly reim-
bursed in each years crops.
1t might be added that rotted straw
may take the place of the manure VI
the phosphate may be added directly
to the clover sod and not in connec-
ton with manure. The rotation of
corn, oats, wheat and clover, can be
made to furnish sufficient humus to
the soil. To do this, cornstalks gen.
orally should not be removed. Only
the seed of the clover crop should be
removed and all straw and other
plant remains should be returned to
and incorporated with the soil.