Comparisons of liquid and solid fertilizers and anhydrous ammonia for sugar beet

Abstract

SUMMARYSix field experiments (1963–8) in eastern England compared solid fertilizer with liquid fertilizer or anhydrous ammonia for sugar beet. Two glasshouse experiments investigated the interaction between depth of placement of fertilizer and soil moisture.Yields of sugar were the same from broadcast solid and sprayed liquid in all the experiments, but nitrogen uptake by the crop was less from liquid than from solid. Three experiments tested placement of liquid 4 in to the side and either 2 or 6 in below the seed. Plants with deep-placed fertilizer consistently out-yielded those with shallowplaced fertilizer, but yields were never significantly different from broadcast solid fertilizer. Dry-matter yields of sugar beet grown in containers indoors showed that the crop responded to deep placement when the surface soil was watered infrequently.With anhydrous ammonia injected during seed-bed preparation, sugar yield and nitrogen uptake were the same as with solid fertilizer in the seed bed, and were greater than with anhydrous ammonia injected in the ploughed land during early spring. A side-band injection of anhydrous ammonia before singling gave a crop containing as much nitrogen at harvest as, but less sugar than, nitrogen applied in the seed bed.