Effect of lime materials on the outgo of sulfur from Hagerstown silt loam soil

Abstract

The percolation of drainage from Hagerstown silt loam soil varied with the depth of subsoil. About one-third of the annual percolation was obtained during the months of December, January, and February, the period of greatest rainfall. An alkaline reaction was obtained in the leachings from the rain gauge, control, and treated lysimeters. At no time during the experimental period was the drainage acid or even neutral. The application of lime materials did not give marked increases in sulphur outgo, but the biological processes which transform sulphur in the soil appeared to be simulated. An application of lime materials with which 12 tons of red-clover hay had been mixed did not materially affect the quantity of sulphur that passed out in the leachings. The growing of millet and clover tended to diminish the outgo of sulphur in the drainage. After the crop was removed the sulphur that was added in the rainfall, together with that contained in the stubble, quickly restored the sulphur to its normal amount for this particular soil type. Clover residues increased plant growth and, together with the rainfall, added sulphur to the soil in sufficient quantity for a second crop of millet. The bare soil lost 2.19more » pounds more sulphur than the soil containing the millet stubble. Lime materials mixed with clover hay gave much greater yields than lime materials alone. The total amount of sulphur in the rain water for six years was much greater than in the leachings from any of the rims to which 1 and 3 feet of subsoil were added. This was not the case, however, when 8 inches of soil were added. The addition of organic matter to the lime materials did not alter this depression of sulphur. The subsoil in these experiments appears to exert a fixing effect in the sulphur brought to the soil in the rainwater, for the outgo of sulphur is diminished when the depth of the subsoil is increased.« less