The nutrition of the carrot: III. Grown in a gravel soil

Abstract

The nutrition of the carrot in a light gravel soil of known analysis with high available phosphate has been studied by statistical pot-culture methods, and the responses, linear and curvature components, etc., due to nitrogen, phosphate, and potash, have been calculated.No hard and fast rule can be made as to the adequacy or otherwise of any particular fertilizer in a soil, as the different parts of the plant (top and root) were shown to be capable of responding quite differently to that fertilizer.

Plant growth with nutrient solutions: I. A brief review of existing work

“…The experiment also demonstrated the correlation between soil requirements as deduced by chemical analysis of the soil and by actual pot-culture experiments, for there was a definite response to applications of phosphate, which had been shown to be deficient by the usual soil analyses; this is perhaps the first time that a fen soil has been successfully used for pot cultures. Woodman & Johnson (1946) have grown the same carrot in pot culture in the greenhouse, using an old river gravel low in available potash by comparison with its high content of available phosphate. There was a statistically significant increase in fresh roots with application of potash, and a simultaneous statistical decrease in fresh tops, demonstrating conclusively that different parts of a plant may respond quite differently to a given fertilizer.…”