The influence of soil properties and lime upon nutrient content and yield of alfalfa and lespedeza

Application of lime to acid soils as a part of soil management has probably been practiced for 3000 years at least. Edmund Ruffin, a practical farmer from Virginia, was perhaps the pioneer in the application of lime in this country.

In the humid regions of the advanced countries in the world, liming has been accepted today as one of the essential practices in the profitable farming and efficient soil management. A large amount of work has been conducted on this topic, many data have been accumulated and countless numbers of articles, research papers and other publications have been written on this vitally important subject.

Considerable progress has also been made in the techniques used for estimating the lime requirement for various soils. The most primitive methods like the use of litmus paper and other similar tests have given place to the modern procedures like the use of pH meters, buffer solutions and other refined techniques which are more precise and at the same time are sufficiently rapid for use on mass scale. The concept of the cause of soil acidity has undergone modification during the past few years and the significance of exchangeable aluminum as a major cause of acidity has been brought to the forefront.

In spite of the fact that soil acidity is a problem of agriculture and not withstanding the large magnitude of research carried out on the subject, it is so complex that the exact nature of the whole situation is still not understood. Considerable amount of research is needed before predictions can be made precisely and with considerable rapidity as to the exact requirement of lime for a particular crop under a specified set of soil and management conditions.

This study was undertaken with the following objectives in mind:

1. To characterize selected soils and evaluate the influence of certain soil properties on the lime requirement of these soils.

2, To determine the effects of the rate of lime application on the yield and composition of alfalfa and lespedeza on the selected soils.