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Show DRY-ROT ATTACKS ONLY j WEAK KR SUGAR BEETS Once again, though not so had as in lirjl, dry-rot (I'homa I!et;e) is attacking a few of the weaker sugar' beets. On the Greenville Farm of: the Utah Agi ieultui al Experiment; Station there are plats of beets grow-1 ing side by side on soil that has been maintained in good condition by rotation rota-tion and manuring and oilier on soil improverished by coutinuoous cropping crop-ping without manure. Also side by ; side are plat's of beets that get plen-' ty or irrigation water and others that I are suffering from lack of water. . On those plats that are well-manured and are not suffering for water, it is hard to find the slightest trace, .of the dry-rot. The only well-man-' ured plats showing the disease ap-' preciably are those that have receiv- j ed only two small irrigations this year and are notably wilted. On those plats that have been seriously I j worn out by continuous cropping to i sugar beets without manure so that1 the beets are very small, the leaves hardly yet interlacing, the dry-rot i has a good hold, from 30 to 60 per ' cent being noticeably affected. An exhaustive rotation of peas, potatoes, po-tatoes, wheat and beets, continued I for 12 years, with no matnure and ' no sod-forming crop has failed to maintain enough strength in the soil to enable the beets to throw off the -disease, and about 50 per cent are : affeeted- This bears out the 1921 results in showing that where the soil is maintained main-tained in good condition by suffi-ent suffi-ent manuring and the crop is not allowed to suffer for water, the beets are able to pesist successfully the disease to which they would otherwise other-wise succumb. D. W. Pittman. |