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Show r ; Farmers Urged to Build Up Soil By Continued Use of Fertilizer . I Utah farmers should return to the soil all plant nutrients that . are removed in crops, by use of . plant residues or commercial fer-. fer-. tilizer to maintain soil fertility, . Dr. D. W. Thorne, associate professor pro-fessor of soils at Utah Agricultural Agricul-tural experiment station reports. Even with all the recent improvements im-provements in farming, it ' is doubtful whether the average yields of most crops in Utah are any higher than those obtained by early pioneer settlers, Dr. Thorne said. Reason for this failure fail-ure Of nrPconf fnT-n Tfarm carry with them nutrients from the soil resisting in a deficit of phosphorus and potash. In the. case of dry farms, a steady depletion of the soil is evident. Potash and phosphorus must be replenished by the addition of commercial fertilizers over a period of time, but the use of such fertilizers is not recommended recom-mended until the soil reserve are depleted to the point where plants I are unable to obtain adequate quantities of each element from the soil. JOi,ucla Lu produce pro-duce higher average yieldsr. of crops is chiefly unbalanced farming farm-ing programs although the increase in-crease of insects and diseases which thrive on cultivated crops and farmers working naturally poor land are factors. "In some areas erosion is carrying car-rying away more soil fertility than is being removed by crops while on other farms excessive irrigation is leaching nutrients below the rooting zone of -most Plants," he said. "Authough losses loss-es result from these factors they are directly related to the care irrigated farms are depleting iheir with which each farmer plans and conducts his soil management program." , Through a survey conducted during the past three, years by members of the class in soil management at Utah State As ricultural college, it has been discovered that farmers on general soils more rapidly than farmers on livestock farms because the livestock farmer ieess practically all hay and grain crops produced right on the farm to the livestock and hauls the manure back to the sou. m addition, he frequently frequent-ly buys hay and grain which- add to his soil balance. The general farmer, however I sells most of his grain from the farm and in some cases even hay. These products leaving the |
