ii6 
Colorado Experiment Station 
NITRIC-NITROGEN INCREASES NITROGEN CONTENT AND PRO¬ 
DUCES FLINTY KERNEL 
Our results in 1913, a favorable year, showed a gain from 0.57 to 
3.36 percent of protein, but there was in every case in which the sodic 
nitrate was applied a greater or srnaller increase. Similar results were 
obtained in 1914 and 1915, but the maximum differences were a little 
greater- The different results obtained with farmyard manure, 
amounting in some experiments to contradictions, may be due to the 
form in which the nitrogen is' present, or to the nitrifying efficiency of 
the soil. It appears to be certain that nitric-nitrogen, or easily nitrifi- 
able ammonic nitrogen, increases the nitrogen content of the grain and 
produces flinty berries; this is not the case with farmyard manure, 
or if farmyard manure ever produces flinty berries with an increase 
m the nitrogen content, it is not uniform * i its action, for it certainly 
does not always do it, while the nitric-nitrogen does. 
The statements previously made, regarding the composition of 
flinty and yellow-berry wheats selected out of the same samples, and 
concerning the composition of flinty wheat grown with the application 
of nitric-nitrogen, and yellow-berry wheat grown with the application 
of potassium, justify me in making the following statements without 
going into the details of many analyses. The application of nitric- 
nitrogen produces flinty kernels, an increase of protein, amounting in 
some cases, to more than 2.0 percent, and a corresponding increase in 
the true gluten. The same relation exists between the starch present 
in the flinty wheat produced by the nitric-nitrogen and in the wheat 
grown with the application of potassium as exists between the percent¬ 
ages of this substance in flinty and mealy-kernels sorted out of the same 
sample. In regard to the mineral constituents, there is usually a little 
more potassium in the mealy samples' than in the flinty, especially in 
normally developed berries. The phosphorus is depressed by the appli¬ 
cation of nitrogen, to which statement we have found but few' excep¬ 
tions ; on the other hand, it cannot be said that potassium has increased 
it. This suppression of phosphorus is exhibited, not only by our sam¬ 
ples grown with the application of nitric nitrogen, but also in samples 
of flinty wheats from other sections when compared with yellow-berry 
w^heat from the same section. This statement applies to the crop and 
is not based on selected kernels. The samples here referred to were 
grown in the immediate neighborhood of one another and on the same 
type of soil, so the questions of climate and type of soil are eliminated- 
The flinty wheat, in this case, contained 0.114 percent less phosphorus 
than the yellow-berry sample. The flinty sample was grown on land 
so rich in nitrate that an ordinary aqueous extract of the soil reacted 
strongly for nitric acid with ferrous sulphate and sulphuric acid. The 
yellow-berry crop in this case contained 50.0 percent more phosphorus 
