[1] It should be remembered that there are ten essential elements of
plant food each of which is of equal importance to the plant, for if
the plant is deprived of any one of the ten essential elements it is
impossible for it to develop and mature. Carbon has no market value
as plant food because the plant obtains carbon in the form of carbon
dioxid, a gas which is present everywhere in the atmosphere and which the
plant inhales through its leaves. Both hydrogen and oxygen are without
market value because they are the elements which compose water, a liquid
compound which plants absorb through their roots. Calcium, magnesium,
iron, and sulfur have no market value as elements of plant food because
they are present in practically all soils in abundance as compared with
the amounts required in plant growth. The three elements nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium, do have market values, because they are
required by plants in very considerable quantities, and they are present
in most soils in rather limited amounts, and when the available supply
of any one of these elements becomes too much reduced in a soil the crop
yield also becomes reduced. For further information regarding the use
of these elements of plant food on Illinois soils, see Circular No. 68,
“Methods of Maintaining the Productive Capacity of Illinois Soils.”
[2] Technically this first step is preliminary to, and not a part of,
nitrification.
[3] Among the scientists who were prominent in making these discoveries
regarding the action of bacteria in the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen
were Hellriegel, Willfarth, and Nobbe in Germany, Atwater in America,
Lawes and Gilbert in England, and Boussingault and Ville in France.
[4] It may be well to call attention to the fact that there are numerous
instances where two different kinds of plants live together in intimate
partnership relation. If only one of the two plants receives benefit from
this relationship or association, then the plant receiving the benefit is
celled a parasite. Thus the mistletoe is a parasite upon the elm or gum
or other tree on which it lives. The mistletoe draws its nourishment from
the tree. The tree is injured rather than benefited by the mistletoe.
Dodder is also a parasitic plant, living upon other plants, except during
the early part of its growth. Ticks and lice are common examples of
animal parasites living upon other animals.
In some cases a relationship exists which is not parasitic but symbiotic.
The term symbiosis, which is commonly used by biologists to define
this relationship, means living together in mutual helpfulness. The
association of bees and flowers may serve to illustrate this mutual
helpfulness, although this is not an example of intimate symbiosis. Thus
the bees obtain their food from the flowers and, in turn, the flowers,
many of them, are incapable of producing seed or fruit unless the pollen
is carried from the male flower to the female flower by bees or other
agencies. It is well known that plant lice and ants are mutually helpful.
Likewise the association of nitrogen-gathering bacteria and leguminous
plants is a relationship of mutual helpfulness and this is one of the
best illustrations of what is meant by symbiosis. The legume furnishes
a home for the bacteria and also furnishes in its juice or sap most of
the nourishment upon which the bacteria live. The bacteria, on the other
hand, take nitrogen from the air contained in the pores of the soil, and
cause this nitrogen to combine with other elements in suitable form for
plant food which is then given up to the legume for its own nourishment.
Another illustration of remarkable parasitism, if not, indeed, one of
true symbiosis, is found in the common lichens living upon rocks and
trees. The lichen is not a single plant, but two plants—an alga, which
lives upon the wood or stone, and a fungus which lives upon the alga.
Algæ also live in the free state separate from fungi, and the present
opinion of botanists seems to be that when the two are associated in
the form of lichens this association is not detrimental, but rather
beneficial, to the alga, as well as to the parasitic fungus. If this is
true, then it is another case of true symbiosis. (There is reason to
believe that the fungus has some power to feed upon atmospheric nitrogen,
and then to furnish combined nitrogen to the alga upon which it lives.)
In the symbiosis of leguminous plants and nitrogen-gathering bacteria we
have a partnership or relationship of immeasurable value to agriculture.
Here is a class of plants (legumes) that are capable of consuming
or utilizing nitrogen in quantities larger than could possibly be
obtained from ordinary soils for any considerable length of time. They
have no power in themselves of taking nitrogen from the atmosphere,
and to them the symbiotic relation with this low order of plants (the
nitrogen-gathering bacteria) is especially helpful, and for the best
results it is absolutely necessary.
[5] There are some noteworthy exceptions to this rule (see following
pages for illustration), and there is some evidence that, by a
comparatively long process of breeding, or evolution, the bacteria which
naturally live upon one kind of legume may gradually develop the power
to live upon a distinctly different legume to which they were not at
first adapted. Of course this process of forcing bacteria to live upon a
legume to which they are not naturally adapted has little or no practical
value because it is unnecessary if there is a species of bacteria which
naturally lives upon the same legume. On the other hand, if, by any
such process of breeding, or evolution, a species of nitrogen-gathering
bacteria could be developed which could live on a non-leguminous plant,
as corn, for example, it would be of incalculable practical value. As yet
the efforts of bacteriologists, working on this problem, have given only
negative results, so far as known to the writer.
[6] In this connection attention is called to the fact that the so-called
“spot disease” of alfalfa, which is not uncommon in the western states,
especially during wet seasons, became somewhat prevalent in Illinois
in 1903. When the effect of this disease becomes marked, the leaves
turn yellow and growth is retarded. If this occurs the alfalfa should
be clipped. This is the only effective remedy known to be practicable.
Seeding alfalfa with a light nurse crop is gaining favor in Illinois.
[7] Some of these observations have already been reported in the
agricultural press. (See, for example, the Breeders’ Gazette, September
9, 1903, page 391, and September 16, 1903, page 442.)
[8] Steamed bone meal is the most economical and satisfactory form of
phosphorus for use on Illinois soils, unless ground rock phosphate (not
acid phosphate) shall prove to be still more economical. Experiments to
determine this are in progress.
[9] Just how long the bacteria will live in a soil without a leguminous
crop upon which they can feed is not definitely known. Certainly they
live for two or three years, but probably not more than five or six
years. Further investigation is needed to establish the length of time
the different kinds of bacteria may remain in the soil under different
conditions.