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The Effect of Partial Sterilisation of Soil on the Production of Plant Food

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

Edward John Russell  and
Henry Brougham Hutchinson
Edward John Russell
Affiliation:
(Rothamsled Experiment Station.)
Henry Brougham Hutchinson
Affiliation:
(Rothamsled Experiment Station.)
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Extract

When soil is partially sterilised, either by heat or by volatile antiseptics like carbou disulphide, toluene, etc., it becomes more productive and capable of yielding larger crops. The effect of heat was discovered incidentally about 25 years ago by the early soil bacteriologists; the action of carbon disulphide was first noticed somewhat later by a vine grower who had used it to kill phylloxera. Both cases have since been studied by several investigators, notably Koch and Hiltner and Störiner; a paper was also recently published by one of us in which it was shown that the property is a general one, holding for all the soils and volatile antiseptics examined and for all the plants, excepting those of the leguminous order. Thus when a soil had been heated to 95° C. it produced two, three, or sometimes four times as much crop as a portion of the soil which had not been heated, whilst treatment with volatile antiseptics led to an increase in crop varying between 20 and 50 per cent.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , October 1909 , pp. 111 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1909

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References

page 111 note 1 Koch, , Arbeiten der deutschen Landwirtschaft-Gesellschaft, 1899, Heft 40.Google Scholar

page 111 note 2 Hiltner, and Störmer, , Arbeiten der Biolog. Abteilung f. Land- u. Forstwirtschaft, 1903, Bd. 3, Heft 5.Google Scholar

page 111 note 3 Darbishire, and Russell, , Journal of Agricultural Science, 1908, Vol. II. p. 305. Full references to the literature of the subject are given in this paper.Google Scholar

page 112 note 1 Pickering, S. U., Journal of Agricultural Science, 1909, Vol. III. p. 411.Google Scholar

page 112 note 2 Koch, , Journal für Landwirtschaft, 1907, Bd. 55, S. 355.Google Scholar

page 112 note 3 Störmer, , Jahresber. d. Vereinigung für Angewandte Botanik, 1907, S. 113.Google Scholar

page 119 note 1 On this view it is easy to explain Rahn's results, which have hitherto remained very obscure. He found that drying the soil at ordinary temperature increased its productiveness but did not cause what he considered sufficient alteration in the bacterial flora or the food supply (i.e. the immediate food supply), Centr.für Bakteriologie, 1908, II. Bd. 20, S. 38.

page 128 note 1 Russell, E. J., this Journal, 1905, Vol. I. p. 261.Google Scholar