CEREALS AND PUI.SE CROPS 



1-273 



the average weight found, but according to the writer they cannot invali- 

 date the rational character of the numerical method which he has proposed 

 for practical objects. 



969 - Liquid Manure with Addition of Sulphuric Acid as Spring Manure and Means of 

 Control against Weeds and Lodging of Wheat. Sulphur treatment against the Pa- 

 rasites of Lodged Wheat. — tiiCLiOLi Italo, in BollcUiiU) ddla Socida dc^li A!;fi- 

 cultori Italicini, Year XXI, No. 9, pp. 257-266. Rome, May 15, 1916. 



As early as 1872, Ludwig Kock demonstrated experimentally that pre- 

 disposition to lodging in cereals must be attributed to insufficiency of light 

 during the first few months of growth of the plant, which insufficiency 

 weakens or entirely interrupts the chlorophyll function, besides promot- 

 ing an accumulation of water in the culms and leaves, which leads to the 

 ra])id lengthening of the weakened plant. The result of this is an exuber- 

 ant growth of the wheat. In the first period of development the growth 

 of the wheat is very dense ; the weeds, which thrive under the shade of the 

 wheat, belong to those species which are adapted to requiring the least 

 quantity of sunlight and which, forcing their roots downwards in the soil 

 more rapidly than wheat, thus find conditions favourable to their develop- 

 ment, which still further increases the shortage of light from which the wheat 

 suffers. Moreover, overcast weather., the crowding of the wheat stalks, the 

 want of light and the humidity due to the weeds which cannot be success- 

 fidly extirpated, favour the growth of parasitic fungi which attack and 

 weaken the watery and soft culms of the wheat at their base. 



The conditions in the .spring of igi6 were such (wet season with fre- 

 quent wind, sky often overcast and unsteady weather) that lodging of the 

 wheat was apprehended, and the writer therefore desired to ascertain the 

 causes of this phenomenon, and on the basis of his own experiments and the 

 results of the chemical method for controlling the weeds which infest wheat, 

 he also desired to suggest suitable remedies against lodging. 



P'armers in general blame fertility of the soil and excess of manure for 

 immoderate growth of the wheat with consequent lodging, but the Author 

 asserts that it is not the natviral or artificial fertility of the soil which direct- 

 h' leads to the lodging of wheat, as he frequently found, for several 3'ears 

 in succession, on the experimental field of vSuessola (though this field is 

 abundantly and even excessivel}^ manured), that wheat never lodged near 

 the edges of the many jjlots (these were 12 j), where the plants had a better 

 exposure to the sun, while the}' were all lodged in the centre of the plot where 

 the vegetation was too crowded. Similar observations, to the effect, na- 

 mely, that an abundance of nitrogenus manure in the soil does not always 

 produce lodging of grain crops, were made a number of j'ears ago by T. PoGGi 

 in Polesina. It follows that in wheat growing the farmer need not be too 

 nuich concerned at an abundance of manure, provided he prevents the young 

 plants undergoing a rapid and crowded growth which would directly de- 

 prive them of light, and takes care to destroy the growth of weeds in good 

 time. The fir.st object may be secured by all such measures as ensure the 

 young wheat the best of all » fertilisers <\ namely sunlight. With this ob- 

 ject in view, the sowing should not be too close or too early, especially if 



CEREALS 



AND PULSE 



CROPS 



