Field Experiments in Bedfordshire on the Chemical Treatment of Soil infected with the Potato Eelworm Heterodera schachtii, during 1936—37

Abstract

Preliminary investigations on the problem of affording protection to the potato plant growing in soil infested with cysts of Heterodera schachtii, were carried out by Hurst & Triffitt (1935, i, ii, 1937). In these experiments promising results were obtained by the application of calcium cyanamide or of ferric oxide to the soil, and trials with these chemicals were designed on a larger'scale. A small field experiment (Hurst & Franklin, 1937) was carried out in Lincolnshire during 1936, using dressings of 30 cwt. per acre of calcium cyanamide and 12 cwt. per acre of ferric oxide. On the cyanamide plots an increased yield of potatoes was accompanied by a relatively small increase in the cyst population of the soil. With ferric oxide the results were not significantly different from those on the untreated control plots.