The results of the greenhouse tests are shown in Table II and expressed as a percent of yield or uptake of nutrients from the standard sources. The response to nitrogen or phosphorus of the standard fertilizers was two to five times that of the no-nitrogen or no-phosphorus controls, thereby assuring valid comparison among the different nutrient sources.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONThese experiments clearly show that long-chain crystalline ammonium and potassium ammonium polyphosphates are effective sources of N and P. As shown in Table II, all of the long-chain polyphosphates were good sources of N, although N uptake tended to be slightly lower than from ammonium nitrate. The long-chain polyphosphates prepared from furnace acid gave responses equivalent to or higher than that of monoammonium orthophosphate, but those products made from wet-process acid were slightly less effective.Most of the long-chain polyphosphates were low in available P (citrate + water soluble) and one sample contained only 27 % of its total P in an available form, as shown in Table II. Thus, the conventional availability test indicates that these polyphosphates could not be useful sources of P for growing plants. In spite of their low rating in the availability test all were effective fertilizers, and the results from fine and granular sources showed the usual granule size response obtained from water-soluble P sources in Mountview soil. Apparently, the rate of dis-solution in the soil was sufficient to give agronomic response typical of water-soluble sources. Therefore, the conventional availability test is not valid for these longchain polyphosphates.This investigation has shown that long-chain crystalline ammonium or potassium ammonium polyphosphates may be readily produced by thermal dehydration of orthophosphates or short-chain polyphosphates, and these highly condensed phosphates are effective sources of N and P.