Bugaboo of Soil Acidity Dispelled
SOIL ACIDITY IS A bugaboo that farmers for years have been uselessly fighting. As a matter of fact, acidity may actually be beneficial instead of harmful if proper soil conservation measures are used.
It is not the acidity in soils that is injurious but the shortage of nutrients that are replaced by acidity. Given the proper fertility, plants will turn in their customary or usual performance even in the presence of soil acidity. This acid condition is merely a case of increased shortage of plant food nutrients for which crops suffer.
Experiments with soybeans in which increased soil acidity made both calcium and phosphorus actually more effective than in more neutral soil, improved the feeding value of forage and kept the sand element lower.
Experiments indicate that it is no longer necessary to fight soil acidity, on the contrary, acidity is beneficial if lime or calcium, phosphorus, potash and other plant foods are utilized to restore full fertility and if soils are helped to maintain their needed stores of organic matter by means of sod crops or corresponding recuperative rest periods.
We can now say that acid tolerant legumes have been discovered. But they tolerate acidity only when fertilizer materials are properly supplied in balanced amounts.
In this connection it was pointed out that the three vital plant foods on which crops depends most are: 1—nitrogen, which encourages early and abundant growth, builds protein and develops the fleshy portion of roots; 2—phosphorus, which hastens the ripening of seed and promotes early maturity; and 3—potash, which is the balance wheel, enabling a crop to make better use of the other plant foods, develop resistance to disease and maintain an improved quality.