-OPS and 



Fertil 



izer 



Research 



By GEORGE D. SCARSETH* 



THE discoveries of fundamental facts 

 pertaining to major plant food nutri- 

 ent elements as nitrogen, phosphorus 

 and potassium are far ahead of trade prac- 

 tices for their distribution. A long lag 

 between discovery and use is a common 

 occurrence, but in the field of fertilizers 

 it is of special significance because in an 

 indirect and complex manner soil re- 

 sources and human welfare are involved. 

 If a sure cure for cancer should be dis- 

 covered, the use of this discovery would 

 be almost instantaneous. The utilization 

 of new discoveries is not so prompt if by 

 such utilization large segments of cost- 

 ly investments in an old established in- 

 dustry might be rendered obsolete. 



With our American system of free and 

 competitive enterprise, such changes have 

 occurred every peaceful year because of 

 competition — someone forced a change 

 because they met the requirements per- 

 mitted by the times. 

 In the field of fertilizers, the slowness 



♦Director of Research, American Farm 

 Research Association. 



14 



of improvements in new mixing and dis- 

 tributing practices and the slowness of 

 education spreading a broad understand- 

 ing of the complex facts of fertilizers, in 

 contrast to the swiftness of developments 

 of fundamental chemistry and the swift- 

 ness of soil exhaustion, erosion and des- 

 struction brings about a situation that 

 justifies pondering the Chinese proverb, 

 "It is later than you think." 



Research has brought forth in the last 

 20 years highly concentrated materials in 

 nitrogen, phosphate and potash carriers, 

 but these have not yet found their way 

 extensively to the land. Nobody is to 

 blame except history itself, but history 

 has victimized the industry that mixes 

 fertilizers. 



It all started about 1824 when Peruvian 

 guano was first imported. This material 

 was very helpful to the cotton and to- 

 bacco growers, largely because of its nitro- 

 gen content. Chilean nitrate salts were 

 soon imported and frequently added to 

 the guano. Bone meal containing phos- 

 phorus helped the crops, too. By 1845, 

 the British had learned to make super- 



phosphate by pouring sulphuric acid on 

 the bones. Somebody started mixing 

 various combinations of these materials. 

 Tobacco stems added bulk and some jxjt- 

 ash. Industrial waste products as fish 

 scrap, tankage, slops and meals were used 

 because they contained some fertilizer 

 ingredients — largely organic nitrogen. 

 Out of mixing these odd materials a fer- 

 tilizer mixing industry got started about 

 1850. 



There was no research to guide the 

 way, no experiments, no control laws, no 

 guaranteeing analysis, but a service was 

 rendered to the grower because he con- 

 tinued to purchase the stuff. The mix- 

 tures did a lot of good, but they were 

 not good enough when research began 

 to indicate what the soils needed and 

 what these fertilizers carried. 



Analysis showed that it was common 

 for a mixture to contain 2 to 3% nitro- 

 gen, 6 to 8% phosphate (P1O5) and as 

 little as 1% potash (KjO). The land 

 was young with a lot of topsoil remain- 

 ing because erosion was still to come. 

 Those who foresaw trouble ahead went 

 unheeded. 



By 1880 the average plant food con- 

 tent of all mixed fertilizers used in the 

 United States was only 2.4% nitrogen, 

 9.1% phosphate and 2% potash. 



It is not much to boast of when by 

 1940 this average had only improved to 

 3.8% nitrogen, 9.6% phosphate and 

 6.4% potash. Such a mixture averaged 

 only less than 20% total plant food con- 

 tent. Not only did this plant food cost 

 too much because there was too little of 

 it in each bag, but the concentration was 

 too low to carry an adequate quantity of 

 plant food to do the job of feeding the 

 plants unless a whopping quantity was 

 used. Such quantities were used only on 

 specialized crops as tobacco, potatoes and 

 truck crops. 



The advantages of low concentrated 

 fertilizer mixtures to the mixing indus- 

 try, who became the real merchandisers 

 of fertilizers, has tended to create a cli- 

 mate of belief in the nation that this is 

 the way things must stand, or that prog- 

 ress is fast enough. Even some of the 

 co-operatives have found the sunshine of 

 such weather more agreeable than to ven- 

 ture into the storms of more vigorously 

 representing the farmer's selfish interests 

 in plant foods. The farmer's selfish in- 

 terest in fertilizers is far different than 

 the selfish interest of the merchants who - 

 manufacture and sell it. Ask yourself 

 this question, "Whose selfish interest has 

 been best represented in the 100 years of 

 fertilizer history in America in making 

 and distributing fertilizers.'" 



Farmer-owned co-operatives have a most- 

 vital responsibility to bring into the com- 

 petitive fertilizer industrial world the 

 farmer's long delayed, special and pe- 



{Continued on page 21) 



L A. A. RECORI> 



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