Abstract
IN horticulture, as in other industries, the War has focused attention on ways and means which before 1939 had not received the notice they deserved. Among them is soil sterilization as a factor in food production. How to produce the greatest amount of good food has become an urgent problem for Great Britain, and there is little reason for believing that this need will be much less pressing for some years to come. To produce the quantity and quality of food we require, five things are necessary. Site, soil and cultivation must be suitable, the choice of variety must be correct and pests and diseases must be controlled. All these are important, but not every one has received proper consideration. Pests and diseases, for example, not only cause serious losses in food production, but they also waste time, labour and materials. Thus, by employing measures for the control of pests and diseases, a higher yield per plant can be obtained with greater economy than by merely increasing the number of plants.
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L., W. Soil Sterilization. Nature 153, 736–738 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/153736a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/153736a0