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Controlling Root-growth

Categories: TILLAGE

The exception to the rule that plant-roots

should not be pruned by deep cultivation is found in the case of a

close soil in a wet season. The plants extend their roots only in the

soil at the surface because the ground is soaked with water nearly all

the time. They cannot form far enough below the surface to withstand a

drouth that may follow the wet weather. Good tillage in such a case

demands the pruning of the roots and the airing of the soil when the

ground is dry enough to permit such stirring, and the plants then

extend their roots in the lower soil where they rightly belong.

Judgment is required to decide when such tillage is desirable, but

judgment is needed all the time in farming. When a continued period of

wet weather affects the position of the plant-roots, it rarely is

advisable not to risk deeper tillage than is given in a normal season.

Underdrainage helps to prevent such ill-effect of continued rains in

the early part of a plant's life-time.



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