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The Relative Growth and Potassium Absorption by Four Crops Under Intensive Culture in a Limited Volume of Soil¹

ABSTRACT

Two successive crops of peanuts, soybeans, corn, and cotton were grown in small volumes of Ruston fine sandy loam to study the relative efficiencies of the four crops to absorb potassium in a limited root environment. One series of treatments was fertilized and another unfertilized with respect to potassium. The roots of all four crops were found to have thoroughly permeated the soil, providing conditions for the rapid exhaustion of readily available sources of potassium.

All crops except cotton were found to have absorbed essentially the same amount of potassium under high levels of fertilization; however, cotton tended to absorb slightly more potassium than the other crops under low potassium conditions.

Potassium deficiency symptoms appeared first and were most severe on corn, followed by cotton, soybeans, and peanuts in that order.

All four crops responded in dry matter production to the application of potassium. In the second planting, the dry matter produced by the unfertilized peanuts, soybeans, cotton, and corn was 69%, 85%, 45%, and 20%, respectively, of the plants fertilized with potassium. Thus with equivalent amounts of potassium absorbed, marked differences were observed in the degree to which potassium deficiencies limited the growth of the four crops.

¹ Contribution from the Department of Agronomy, North Carolina Agr. Exp. Sta. Published with the approval of the Director as Paper No. 603 of the Journal Series. Presented before Division IV, Soil Science Society of America, St. Paul, Minn., Nov. 11, 1954.

² Research Instructor, and Head, Department of Agronomy, respectively. The authors are indebted to J. R. Piland for chemical analyses of the soil and plant samples.

Received for publication November 22, 1954.