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Economic control of fertilizer in highly productive pastoral systems. II. Designing field trials with physiologically balanced fertilizer through subtractive pot experiments

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Abstract

Deficiencies in essential chemical elements were diagnosed for two soils in a pot trial, using a subtractive technique and two different test plants: perennial ryegrass for ‘major’ elements and white clover for ‘minor’ elements. This information was required in a pastoral area to permit field trials to be designed with a suitably fortified superphosphate as the fertilizer input. The trials themselves are wanted to provide economic advice soundly based in relation to nutritional needs of pasture plants and grazing animals. Accordingly, a complex argument has been developed to justify using simple 3-level trials with physiologically balanced fertilizer instead of conventional multilevel factorial types; also to show how the simple trials should be designed.

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Middleton, K. Economic control of fertilizer in highly productive pastoral systems. II. Designing field trials with physiologically balanced fertilizer through subtractive pot experiments. Fertilizer Research 4, 315–330 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01054005

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01054005

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