OCR Text |
Show "FhI AROUND PUB JiilliillPl By GRANT E8PLIN Beaver County Agent We have a lot of excellent meadow land in Beaver Valley which produces a lot of good forage for beef and dairy cattle. This land sells for a high price and produces a lot of good forage for-age per acre. The question is will it economicaly produce more by the use of commercial fertilizer. If plenty of barnyard manure is available this may take care of the fertility needs Phosphate may need to be added add-ed even where barnyard manure man-ure is used. Most pasture land does not receive barnyard manure, therefore there-fore good response can be obtained ob-tained by the use of commercial nitrogen and phosphorous On pasture that contains clover, probably phosphorous is the most economical to use. Eighty to 120-lb application of actual available phosphorous every three years would be sufficient. Pastures that contain Legumes Le-gumes produce at least part of their own nitrogen needs. Ke-sponse Ke-sponse can be obtained by the addition of at least 40 pounds of actual nitrogen per acre. On a trial several years ago on a pasture belonging to Wallace Wal-lace Yardley a definite response to both nitrogen and phosphorous phosphor-ous was obtained. The increase was about a half ton of hay per acre on one cutting where either nitrogen or phosphorous was used alone. Where they were used together the increase was about one ton of hay per acre in a single cutting. Nitrogen will make the grass grow earlier in the spring and will Increase the protein con tent of the grass. Ferry Carpenter of Hayden, Colo, figures he can run the same number of cattle on half the acreage by proper use of fertilization, proper irrigation and management. If irrigation water is left too long it leeches the nitrogen from the soil. Stockmen who want to increase in-crease the size of their operating operat-ing unit might consider use of commercial fertilizer to accomplish ac-complish this purpose rather than buving additional land. Sawdust is a good mulch for berries, home orchard trees and vegetables, deports Dr. Robert A. Norton, assistant professor of horticulture at USU. It conserves moisture, suppresses sup-presses weeds and improves heavy soils when plowed under. Dr. Norton says it might well be used in heavy clay soils in the valley bottoms of Utah. He advises adding seven or eight pounds of ammonium sulphate to each 100 pounds of sawdust incorporated with the soil or about 2V4 pounds of ammonium am-monium sulphate per bushel of sawdust. This will avoid a nitrogen nitro-gen deficiency and burning of plants. , The mulch should be one inch deep for shallow rooted crops such as strawberries, several inches for deeper rooted perennial peren-nial plants. Apply the mulch after plants are several inches high and weeds are under con- trApply mulch around fruit i trees in much heavier amounts But be sure not to forget the nitrogen. |