One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered Part 46

I have apricot trees that appear to be almost dead; all but a very few small green leaves are gone, and they look bad, still I think they might be saved if I only knew what to do.

Presumably your apricot tree is suffering from too much standing water during the dormant season, or from a lack of water during the dry season. The remedy would be to correct moisture conditions, either by underdrainage for winter excess or by irrigation for summer deficiency.

When a tree gets into a position such as you describe, it should be cut back freely and irrigation supplied, if the soil is dry, in the house that the roots may be able to restore themselves and promote a new growth in the top.

Dry Plowing for Soil and Weed Growth.

Is there any scientific reason to support the belief that it is injurious to the soil to dry-plow it for seeding to grain this fall and winter? Will dry-plowing now cause a worse growth of filth after the rains than the customary fallowing in the spring? Should the stubble be burned, or plowed under!

The points against dry-plowing to which you allude may arise from two claims or beliefs: first, that turning up land to the sun has a tendency to "burn out the humus"; second, that dry-plowing may leave the land so rough and cloddy that a small rainfall is currently lost by evaporation and leaves less moisture available for a crop than if it is plowed in the usual way after the rains. The first claim is probably largely fanciful, so far as an upturning in the reduced sunshine of the autumn goes. Whatever there may be in it would occur in vastly increased degree in a properly worked summer-fallow, and even that is negligible, because of the greater advantage which the summer-fallow yields. There may be cases in which one will get less growth on dry-plowing than on winter plowing, if the land is rough and the rain scant, and yet dry-plowing before the rains is a foundation for moisture reception and retention - if the land is not only plowed, but is also harrowed or otherwise worked down out of its large cloddy condition. When that is done, dry-plowing may be a great help toward early sowing and large growth afterward. As for weeds, dry-plowing may help their starting, but that is an advantage and not otherwise, because they can be destroyed by cultivation before sowing. If the land is full of weed seed, the best thing to do is to start it and kill it. The trouble with dry-plowing probably arises, not from the plowing, but from lack of work enough between the plowing and the sowing. Stubble should often be burned: it depends upon the soil and the rainfall. On a heavy soil with a good rainfall, plowing-in stubble is an addition to the humus of the soil, because conditions favor its reduction to that form, and there is moisture enough to accomplish that and promote also a satisfactory growth of the new crop.

Treatment of Dry-Plowed Land.

We are plowing a piece of light sandy mesa land, dry, which has considerable tarweed and other weeds growing before plowing. Which would be best, to leave the land as it is until the rains come and then harrow, or harrow now? Would the land left without harrowing gather any elements from the air before rain comes! The above land is for oat hay and beans next season.

Roll down the 'tar-weed, if it is tall and likely to be troublesome, and plow in at once so that decay may begin as soon as the land gets moisture from the rain. It would be well to allow the land to lie in that shape, and disc in the seed without disturbing the weeds which have been plowed under. If all this is done early, with plenty of rain coming there is likely to be water enough to settle the soil, decay the weeds, and grow the hay crop. Of course, such practice could not be commenced much later in the season. The land gains practically nothing from the atmosphere by lying in its present condition. If there is any appreciable gain, it would be larger after breaking up as proposed. In dry farming, harrowing or disking should be done immediately after plowing, not to produce a fine surface as for a seed bed, but to settle the soil enough to prevent too free movement of dry air. If your rainfall is ample, the land may be left looser for water-settling.

For a Refractory Soil.

What can I do to soil that dries out and crusts over so hard that it won't permit vegetable growth? A liberal amount of stable manure has been applied, and the land deeply plowed, harrowed and cultivated, but as soon as water gets on it, it forms a deep crust on evaporation. Will guano help, or is sodium nitrate or potash the thing?

None of the things you mention are of any particular use for the specific purpose you describe. Keep on working in stable manure or rotten straw, or any other coa.r.s.e vegetable matter, when the soil is moist enough for its decay. Plow under all the weeds you can grow, or green barley or rye, and later grow a crop of peas or vetches to plow in green. Keep at this till the pesky stuff gets mellow. If you think the soil is alkaline, use gypsum freely; if not, dose it with lime to the limit of your purse and patience, and put in all the tillage you can whenever the soil breaks well.

More Manure, Water and Cultivation Required.

I have a small place on a hillside, with brown soil about one to two feet deep to hardpan and I am getting rather discouraged, as so many things fail to come up and others grow so very slowly after they are up.

A neighbor planted some dahlia roots the same time I did. Only one of mine came up and it is not in bloom yet, while several of his have been blooming for some weeks and are ten times as large in ma.s.s of foliage as mine with its lone stalk and one little bud on the top. Peas came up and kept dying at the bottom with blossoms at the top tilt they were four or five feet high, but I never could get enough peas for a mess. Can you help me get this thing right?

Use of stable manure and water freely. Your trouble probably lies either in the lack of plant food or of moisture in the soil. This, of course, is supposing that you cultivate well so that the moisture you use shall not be evaporated and the ground hardened by the process. During the summer a good surface application of stable manure to which water can be applied would be better than to work manure into the soil, which should be done at the beginning of the rainy season. As your soil is so shallow it will be well for you to stand along the side of the plant much of the time with a bucket of water in one hand and a shovel of manure in the other.

Planting Trees in Alkali Soil.

My land contains a considerable quant.i.ty of both the black and white alkalies, the upper two feet being a rather heavy, sticky clay, the next three feet below being fine sand, containing more or less alkali, while immediately underneath this sand is a dense black muck in which, summer and winter, is found the ground-water. Do you think the following method of setting trees would be advantageous. Excavate for each tree a hole three feet in diameter and three feet deep. Fill in a layer of three or four inches of coa.r.s.e hay, forming a lining for the excavation. Then fill the hole with sandy loam in which the tree is to be set. The sandy loam would give the young tree a good start, while the lining of hay would break up the capillary attraction between the filled-in sand and the ground-water in the surrounding alkali-charged soil.

The fresh soil which you put in would before long be impregnated through the surface evaporation of the rising moisture, which your straw lining would not long exclude. The trees would not be permanently satisfactory under such conditions as you describe, though they might grow well at first. It would be interesting, of course, to make a small-scale experiment to demonstrate what would actually occur and it would, perhaps, give you a chance to sell out to a tenderfoot.

Planting in Mud.

Why does ground lose its vitality or its growing qualities when it is plowed or stirred when wet, and does this act in all kinds of soil in the same way? We are planting a fig and olive orchard at the present time, but some were planted when the ground was extremely wet. The holes were dug before the rain and after a heavy rain they started to plant.

After placing the trees in the holes they filled them half full with wet dirt, in fact so wet that it was actually slush. What would you advise under the circ.u.mstances and what can be done to counteract this? We have not finished filling in the holes since the planting was done, which was about a week ago.

The soil loses its vitality after working when too wet, because it is thrown into bad mechanical (or physical) condition and therefore becomes difficult of root extension and of movement of moisture and air. How easily soil may be thrown into bad mechanical condition depends upon its character. A light sandy loam could be plowed and trees planted as you describe without serious injury perhaps, while such a treatment of a clay would bring a plant into the midst of a soil brick which would cause it to spindle and perhaps to fail outright. The best treatment would consist in keeping the soil around the roots continually moist, yet not too wet. The upper part of the holes should be filled loosely and the ground kept from surface compacting. The maintenance of such a condition during the coming summer will probably allow the trees to overcome the mistake made at their planting, unless the soil should be a tough adobe or other soil which has a disposition to act like cement.

Electro-Agriculture.

Kindly tell me of any one who is working upon the application of electricity to stimulating agricultural growth-especially here on the Coast. A friend who has done some work in this line seeks to interest me. I have seen notices of this work, and have read of Professor Arrhenius stimulating the mental activity of children, etc., but I desire more definite information, if possible. Does the idea seem to you to be feasible?

So far as we know, there has been no local trial of the effect of electric light in stimulating plant growth. Much has been done with it in Europe and in this country. There is much about it in European scientific literature. It is perfectly rational that increased growth should be attained by continuous light in the same way, though in less degree than occurs in the extreme north during the period of the midnight sun. It is known that moonlight, to the extent of its illumination, increases plant growth, and it has been amply demonstrated that light is light, just as heat is heat, irrespective of the source thereof. Of course, the commercial advantage must be sought in the relative amount of increased growth and the selling value of whatever is gained in point of time.

High Hardpan and Low Water.

What detriment is hardpan if 14 inches below the surface and in some places 12 inches? I have been plowing so I could set peach trees, but I have been told that they will not grow. I would like your opinion about it. I intended to blast holes for the trees, and the water is 30 feet from surface. The top soil is red sandy and clay mixed, but it works very easily.

You cannot expect much from trees on such a shallow soil over hardpan without breaking it up, because the soil ma.s.s available to the trees is small; also because the shallow surface layer over hardpan will soon dry out in spite of the best cultivation, because there is no moisture supply from below. If such a soil should be selected for fruit trees at all, the breaking through the hardpan by dynamite or otherwise is desirable, and irrigation will be, probably, indispensable.

Depth of Cultivation.

I would be glad to know whether in cultivating an orchard a light-draft harrow could profitably be used, which cultivates three and a half inches deep? I have used another cultivator, and try to have it go at least seven inches.

A depth of 3 1-2 inches is not satisfactory in orchard cultivation, although there may be some condition under which greater depth would be difficult to obtain because of root injury to trees, which have been encouraged to root near the surface. Both experience and actual determinations of moisture in this State show that cultivation to a depth of 5 inches conserves twice as much moisture in the lower soil as can be saved by a 3-inch depth of cultivation under similar soil conditions and water supply. It is all the better to go 7 inches if young trees have been treated that way from the beginning.