Don Hurdman Bark
Published: 2017-10-27
Total Pages: 26
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Excerpt from Alfalfa Growing As was mentioned in the introduction, alfalfa has the power of supplying nitrogren to the soil, and it is a good thing Provid ence provided this plant with this power, for if it did not have it there would be but few soils sufficiently rich in nitrogen to grow the crop for any length of time. This same thing would prob ably hold true to a somewhat lesser extent with the other legum inous crops. For they all contain a large amount of nitrogen or protein. They therefore must be able to secure a large amount of it from the soil. The manner in which alfalfa and the other legumes supply nitrogen to the soil is through the bacteria which live in and upon their roots. These bacteria are not originally present in all soils, for these particular bacteria cannot live with out legumes, nor can the legumes live for any length of time without the bacteria, the principal reason being that the legume is such a greedy feeder upon the nitrogen in the soil that unless the bacteria are present, it soon exhausts the available nitrogen in almost any soil. While all legumes harbour bacteria of much the same nature, it has been found that there are certain kinds that prefer each particular leguminous plant. This is probably due to the fact that these particular bacteria have adapted them selves to this plant. These bacteria are so small that they can scarcely be seen with even a microscope oi' the highest power. It is believed that they are absorbed by the minute root hairs along with the water, and after being absorbed irritate the rootsto such an extent that plant juices are automatically thrown out at the spot, thus forming the little appendages called nodules in which the bacteria live. These nodules vary with alfalfa from small whitish lobes the size of a pin head to clusters of these lobes one half inch in diameter arranged somewhat like a bunch of grapes. These bacteria after becoming domiciled in the nodules attached to the roots multiply at an extremely rapid rate, and are able to absorb the free nitrogen found in the air spaces of the soil, and work it over into nitrates, a definite chemical com pound and a plant food of the highest value, in which shape the alfalfa itself or any other plant can utilize it. These bacteria therefore are very essential to alfalfa, no matter where it is grown. In the soils of certain districts throughout the West it seems there are enough of these alfalfa bacteria or other bacteria of a similar nature that can readily adapt themselves to the alfalfa plant, so that it is unnecessary to inoculate the alfalfa at the time of planting. Such is not the case here, however, though the continued planting of alfalfa on our irrigation pro jects may in time develop these bacteria so that they will become so widely scattered throughout the soil that it will be found till net-essary to supply them artificially. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
