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Show Phosphorus Tops for Alfalfa Crops Alfalfa Is the major forage crop in Utah, with more than 400,000 acres harvested each year. About one-third of the total to-tal cropped land of the state is devoted to the production of this all-important feed. Many factors influence alfalfa yields insects, disease, moisture, mois-ture, salt but one of the most important factors is soil fertility. Fertilizer experiments conducted by Utah State University show that phosphorus is the most ef- j ficient plant nutrient for alfalfa. The average production per acre in Utali is about 2.6 tons. When the farmer considers all of his fixed costs in producing alfalfa, he finds he is not making any profit at this production level I he's barely breaking even. All it takes to put himself in a profit position is a slight additional expenditure for fertilizer. Fertility Fertili-ty studies prove that increased yields boost profits at a much faster rate than the corresponding correspond-ing boost in production costs. For example, a 67' ! increase in yields results, on the average, i.u 160 pounds of aailablc phosphorus phos-phorus per acre were applied, the phosphorus content of the alfal-more alfal-more than 9K)'; increase in profit. pro-fit. It all boils down to this: The farmer must increase his yields above the break-event point, for this is where profit begins. Field studies conducted at Harper, Har-per, Box Elder County, showed that 160 pounds of phosphate on a deficiant soil increased the farmer's far-mer's gross return from $30.-10 per acre (no phosphate added i to $91.60 per acre (after cost of fertilizer deducted). On a 100 acre field, this would mean an increase of more than $6,000 by using phosphate fertilizers. (See I attached tablet In addition, on the plot where fa hay went up 30 and the protein pro-tein content increased 18',c These quality factors are extremely important im-portant in milk and beef production. produc-tion. In a California study, steers fed alfalfa hay that was high in phosphorus actually gained more than two pounds per day. Another An-other group of steers same breed, age, weight and quality were fed low-phosphorus hay and gained one one-half pound per day. After the study was complete, com-plete, the results showed it had taken 2,130 pounds of low phosphorus phos-phorus hay to put on 100 pounds of weight on the steers, whereas only 940 pounds of high-phosphorus hay were required for the same weight gain in the other group of steers. In other words, each ton of high phosphorus hay resulted in more than twice as much meat as the low-phosphorus hay. High phosphorus content in alfalfa al-falfa also fights off a number of diseases afflicting cattle, ac cording to a recent Utah State University bulletin. The bulletin tells of a report on a particular disease parturient hemoglobin, emla which afflicts cows. It is caused by a low-phosphorus diet The study revealed that the phosphorus phos-phorus content of alfalfa on 19 farms where the disease occur-ed, occur-ed, was ,15'c Alfalfa grown on soils adequately supplied with phosphorus contained .20 to .25 per cent phosphorus. The study further revealed that the use of fertilizer oh forage crops goes a long way towards preventing this disease. |
