Browsing by Author "Tidbury, G. E."
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Item Pineapple Experiment in Zanzibar(July, 1944) Tidbury, G. E.; ZanzibarManurial and spacing experiments with pineapples, which have been carried out for four years, indicate that, under Zanzibar conditions, dressings of sulphate of ammonia cause increases in the number and size of fruits produced. The effect of sulphate of ammonia on the number of fruits produced became negative for the second ratoon crop, but positive again· after partial re-planting. Dressings of sulphate of potash which caused decreases in yield in the first year became of positive value and caused yield increases by the fourth year. These are greatest when nitrogen is also present.Item Pineapple experiments in Zanzibar(1942) Briant, A. K.; Tidbury, G. E.In a previous report* covering the first and second harvesting seasons, the results of a" manurial and a spacing trial on pineapples, conducted at the Kizimbani Experiment Station, were described. The results of the third and fourth harvesting seasons of these trials are now available and the present article reviews the findings over the four-year period. One of the aims of the experimental programme on pineapples being carried out at Kizimbani is to study methods whereby pineapples can be grown in continual cultivation On the same land. This kind of cultivation markedly, influences experimental results from two main causes. Firstly, the stimulating effect of a treatment which produced a heavy harvest is followed in the next year by an adverse effect in that more of the plants which received the treatment become" ratoons" than do those in the non-treated areas and the" ratoon" plants do not bear so well in the second year as original plants which have not yet fruited. Care must be taken therefore in distinguishing between a treatment effect which is merely hastening the harvest and the more valuable effect of both hastening and increasing the harvest. The second cause is that yield apparently diminishes with continued ratooning, apart from the effects of soil exhaustion. The manner in which repeated cropping produces this result is not yet clearly understood, but the habit of growth of the plant may afford a tentative explanation. Each ratooning sucker becomes progressively further detached from the soil as suckers sprout from the axils of the parent plant and frequently become recumbent under the weight of their fruit. After a few years it becomes necessary to remove all the old root bases and reset the last generation of suckers firmly in the soil. This, apparently, has a stimulating effect on fruit (yield, number and total weight), although if the majority of suckers are replanted in the plot the effect may be similar to the establishmentItem The selection and breeding of zebu cattle in Zanzibar(1954) Tidbury, G. E.; Department of Agriculture, ZanzibarThe stock farm at the Kizimbani Experiment Station of the Zanzibar Department of Agriculture was established in 1940 by a grant made from Colonial Development and Welfare Funds. The main object of the farm has been to build up an improved strain of Zebu cattle which would possess high milk-yielding capabilities but which would retain the local Zebu's resistance to disease and its ability to thrive on local pasture for the greater part of the year without supplementary feeding. It was necessary also to bear in mind that male animals are commonly used for draught purposes. There has been no attempt to introduce exotic strains into the herd nor to produce the type of grade animals required by the commercial dairymen centred around Zanzibar Town.Item The use of microplots in a reconnaissance survey of the nutrient status of the soils of Zanzibar island(1950) Tidbury, G. E.; Calton, W. E.The soil microplot is a method of assessing the response of a soil to external factors, such as the application of fertilizers, in terms of the green weight of a particular plant, the most common one being maize. The chief value of the microplot lies in its cheapness and the rapidity with which a result is obtained as compared with the orthodox field experiment. . Several microplots can be established for the same cost as one large field trial and, within the recognized limitations of the microplot method, give results which are particularly acceptable because they are based on a number of assays.
