Soil aldehydes: A scientific study of a new class of soil constituents unfavorable to crops, their occurrence, properties and elimination in practical agriculture

✍ Scribed by Joshua J. Skinner

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1918
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 946 KB
• Volume: 186
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/s0016-0032(18)90275-9

✦ Synopsis

An experiment to test the action of aldehydes on a third soil in the field was conducted on the Dunkirk clay loam on the experimental farm of the Cornell Experiment Station at Ithaca, N . Y ., in 1916, The soil on which the experiment is laid out is the silty phase of the Dunkirk clay loam . It is stiff and rather compact and runs together, making it difficult to cultivate . The field produces average crops for the section, yet it is a less productive soil than the Hagerstown loam at State College, Pa . Lime benefits the soil for clover, but not especially for grass . When examined in the laboratory the soil was found to be very acid, and its oxidizing power was much less than either the Hagerstown loam or the Arlington soil on which the aldehyde experiments were made .

As in the two former field experiments, cowpeas were grown . The climate is rather cold and the season too short in this section of New York for cowpeas, but, inasmuch as the other field experiments were made with cowpeas, it was desired to grow the same crop in this soil .

The vanillin, salicylic aldehyde, fertilizers, and lime were used in the same amounts as in the former experiments, and the aldehydes and fertilizers were applied in three portions as before . The arrangement of the plots was somewhat different from that of the other experiments . These plots were io feet by 6 .8 feet-one six-hundred-and-fortieth of an acre-the same size as the Arlington plots . The plan of the experiment and arrangement of the plots is shown in Fig. . Three rows of peas were planted in "Concluded from page 584, Vol.