Abstract
IN the correspondence on this subject in NATURE of Nov. 29 last, p. 843, “The Writer of the Article” suggests that depth of sowing in wheat plays an important part in accurate field experiments. Many years' experience on the black cotton soils of Central India and on the alluvium of the Indo-Gangetic plain fully confirms this view. Until quite recently, the practice among the cultivators round Indore was to sow wheat by means of a bamboo tube fixed behind the country plough. The consequence was that many of the seeds germinated but the seedlings never reached the surface. In dry years particularly, when many of the seeds were covered by large clods, a very uneven stand was obtained. Some years ago, a member of the staff of this Institute, Mr. K. R. Joshi, devoted a good deal of time to the study of this question, and found that much better and more even stands of wheat could be obtained by the two-coulter Gujerati drill, which deposits the seed in the moist layer of soil just below the dry surface mulch. The cultivators are now rapidly changing their practice, and the drilling of wheat is now to be seen in many of the villages on the Malwa plateau. I have myself, on the alluvial soils of the plains, often observed the deleterious effect of sowing wheat too far below the surface.
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HOWARD, A. Agricultural Field Experiments. Nature 127, 166 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/127166a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/127166a0
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