Results from experiments measuring the effects of large amounts of fertilizer and of farmyard manure on main-crop potatoes grown in sandy soil at Woburn, Bedfordshire

Abstract

SUMMARY: The largest yields of potatoes in the Woburn Reference Experiment were obtained by giving both farmyard manure (FYM) and fertilizers, rather than fertilizers alone; an explanation was sought in experiments made on the coarse sandy loam there from 1968–71. Each year, single and double amounts of NPK fertilizer (supplying 250 or 500 kg N/ha plus P and K) were incorporated, either deeply or shallowly, into the seed bed. From 1969, FYM also was tested at rates giving the same amounts of N, similar amounts of K, but more P than the fertilizers; it was tested both alone and with fertilizers.FYM was less effective than fertilizer when given alone. The combination of FYM and fertilizer gave a larger yield than the single amount of fertilizer and a larger yield than the double amount of fertilizer incorporated shallowly, but a smaller yield than the double amount of fertilizer incorporated deeply, which gave the largest yield each year.The NPK contents of the potato tubers were used to construct nutrient balance sheets; large residues of N, P and K remained in the soil after harvest. Winter wheat was grown to value these in 1971 and 1972. Fertilizer residues increased only straw yields, but FYM residues increased yields of both grain and straw. Both kinds of residues were less effective than freshly applied N, so most of the N leached during winter.The yield of saleable tubers was increased, not decreased, by the double amount of fertilizer.