Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 16, Number 46, DeMotte, Jasper County, 4 October 1946 — ON THE FARM FRONT [ARTICLE]

ON THE FARM FRONT

Recent weeks of dry weather have impressed farmers with the necessity of staring available soil water if crop yields are not to be limited. For the production of 100 bushels of corn, 20 inches of rainfall must be held in the soil during the rgowing period, according to Purdue University and USDA Soil ConservaLion research specialists. In their experience with fertilizer experiments, crop yields often are so limited by the lack of available soil water at critical periods that the effect of the fertilizer is not fully realized. When the water runoff is as high as 25 percent in a corn season, as has

been shown in their experiments, the yield is definitely lowered. Tests made on the Throckmorton experiment soil conservation farm, Lafayette,’ indicated that the soil after one rotation of improved reatment absorbed more rainfall than it did the first year of treatment. They also indicated that more rainfall enteres the soil on the watershed that is liberally fertilized and contour seed than the watershed that received a lower rate of fertilization and check seeded.