Despite the growth of other industries and businesses; the agricultural sector is still an important part of the American economy – both to feed ourselves and to earn export income. Maybe the total acreage under cultivation has reduced lately and a wider spread of crops may be found today; but, the American “Corn Belt” remains a large productive part of the country’s Mid-West region (including Western Ohio). Today’s farms are typically large acreage crop farms and fertilizing the soil remains an important part of their activities.
But What Fertilizer To Use?
This is subject to much debate throughout today’s society and can cover ground from organically grown to genetically modified foods – much of these arguments being beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say that, until fairly modern times, natural fertilizers were used and that manure (or muck) from livestock waste predominated.
Getting It Onto The Land
When farms and crop fields were small; it was possible to spread manure over the land by hand; but, as the farms grew and grew in size; this was no longer practical. In 1875, Joseph Kemp invented the first automated muck (or manure) spreader which was designed to shred the more solid manure and throw it out of the back of a cart being drawn across the field by a team of horses. However, workers still had to follow behind to spread out the somewhat narrow trail of deposited manure. Nevertheless, this was the world’s first large scale fertilizer applicator.
Today, tractors and the like have replaced the horses and improvements in the ejection system have been made so that a wider, thinner layer is deposited behind the spreader (incidentally, the term “muck spreader” is more often associated with the sprayed application of liquid manure).
Getting It Into The Soil
At their most effective, manures or modern chemical fertilizers need to be mixed in with the soil to be better absorbed by a plant’s roots. True, they can be ploughed under after they have been spread on the top of the soil and, of course, liquid fertilizers will sink in and penetrate the soil.
Necessity is the mother of invention so, naturally, many improvements have been incorporated into fertilizer applicators since Kemp’s invention. Composite pieces of farm machinery are now available that can apply fertilizer and bury it in the soil as the equipment is being pulled across the field. The fertilizer coulter is but one example of many different devices.
For crop farmers throughout Western Ohio, Indiana, Michigan & Kentucky; the firm of Fennig Equipment L.L.C. (based out of Coldwater Ohio) is conveniently located to meet all needs for agricultural equipment including several types of Fertilizer Applicator.
