Asparagus In The South
There is no crop grown by the Southern trucker that has paid better than
asparagus year after year. With many of the other truck crops sent North
the growers have to contend with a host of planters who rush in at times
to
plant certain crops like early potatoes, peas, and beans, and whose
inferior crops often glut the market and make the season unprofitable
all around. These men drop out after a season that their particular
venture did not pay, and the regular truckers, being well aware that
they would do so, always redouble their efforts the year after a bad
season with any particular crop, knowing from experience that then it
would be certain to be profitable.
But the asparagus crop is one into which the temporary growers can not
jump in and out of, for the crop requires special preparation of the
soil and patient waiting and culture pending the time for reaping a
harvest, and the men who are always ready to jump into the annual crops
always wish to realize at once, and do not generally have the capital to
put into a crop that requires several years before realizing. Hence the
asparagus crop has been left to the regular market gardeners, and has
been uniformly profitable when well managed.
As regards soil for asparagus in the South, it should be deep, light,
warm, and well drained, either naturally or artificially. The level
sandy soils that abound in all the South Atlantic Coast region, having a
compact subsoil of reddish clay under it at a moderate depth, makes the
ideal soil for the early asparagus.
In preparing such a soil for the crop, it is well to be thorough in the
matter, for the crop is to remain there indefinitely, and if success is
to be expected the previous preparation should be of the most thorough
character. Hence, as the soils best adapted to the growth of the plant
are commonly deficient in vegetable matter, which desirable
characteristic can only be found in abundance on the lands too low and
moist for the asparagus crop, some preparatory culture should be used
that will tend to increase the amount of organic decay in the soil.
For this purpose there is nothing better than the Southern field or cow
pea. The land should be prepared by giving it a heavy dressing of acid
phosphate and potash; and putting it in peas sown broadcast at the rate
of a bushel or more per acre. With a heavy dressing of the mineral
fertilizers the pea crop will be heavy, and should be allowed to fully
ripen and decay on the land, to be plowed under, and the process
repeated the following year. In the mean time the seed should be sown
for the growth of the roots for setting the land.
Two crops of cow-peas allowed to die on the land and turned under will
give a store of vegetable matter that would be hard to get in any other
manner. While heavy manuring with stable manures is very desirable where
the material can be had at a reasonable cost, the larger part, and, in
fact, nearly all of the Southern asparagus, must be grown by the aid of
chemical fertilizers, and the storing up of humus in the land from the
decaying peas is an important factor in the placing of the soil in a
condition to render the chemical fertilizers of more use, since the
moisture-retaining nature of the organic matter plays an important part
in the solution of matters in the soil. Aside from this, there will be a
large increase in the nitrogen contents of the soil through the
nitrification of this organic matter.
The second crop of peas should be plowed under in late fall when
perfectly ripe and dead, so that the land can be gotten into condition
for planting in early spring. The land should be thoroughly plowed, and
if the clay subsoil comes near the surface it should be loosened with
the subsoil plow. Furrows are then run out four and a half to five feet
apart, going twice in the furrow, and then cleaning out with shovels
till there is a trench a foot deep. In the bottom of this trench place a
good coat of black earth from the forest, or, if well-rotted manure can
be had, use that of course. Set the plants twenty inches apart in the
furrow, and by means of hand-rakes pull in enough earth to barely cover
the crowns.
As growth begins, the soil is to be gradually worked in around the
advancing shoots till the soil is level. Now give a dressing of 1,000
pounds per acre, alongside the rows, of a mixture of 900 pounds of acid
phosphate, 500 pounds of fish scrap, 200 pounds of nitrate of soda, and
400 pounds of muriate of potash, and keep the plants cultivated
shallowly and flat with an ordinary cultivator till the tops are mature.
An application of salt may be useful if applied in the fall in making
some matters in the soil available, but salt in itself is of no use
whatever to the plants. We would never apply salt in the spring, as it
has a tendency to lessen nitrification and to retard the earliness of
the shoots.
The annual dressing of the fertilizer named should now be increased to a
ton per acre, and it should be applied not later than February 1st in
each year. After the tops have been cut in the fall it is a good plan to
plow furrows from each side over the rows and to plow out the middles,
for the shoots will always start earlier in an elevated ridge, which
warms up earlier in the spring.
The second year after planting cutting may begin, and the shoots must be
cut as fast as they show, care being taken to cut down near the crown of
the roots, but not to injure the other shoots that may be starting.
After cutting is over--and the length of time the bed should be cut is
of little importance in the South, for the price at the point where it
is shipped will always tell you when to stop--the soil should be again
worked down flat, and if the growth has not been as satisfactory as
could be wished, a dressing of 100 pounds per acre of nitrate of soda at
this time will usually pay very well. Asparagus should always be bunched
in a machine made for that purpose. The bunches are packed in crates
just deep enough to hold the bunches set upright on a bed of moss, and a
cover of the same damp moss should be placed on top.
Where there is a demand for green asparagus the planting should be done
more shallowly in a simple furrow, and the entire culture should be flat
and shallow. The shoots are cut at the surface of the ground after they
have attained the proper length. One thing is to be observed in either
method, and this is that during the cutting season everything long
enough must be cut daily, and that the little shoots be not allowed to
run up and branch out. Cull the shoots after they are all out and bunch
accordingly. Green shoots should be bunched by themselves and not mixed
with the blanched ones. None but new, light crates should be used, for a
clean and neat package will always favor its contents in the selling.
W. F. MASSEY.
North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station.
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