Circular No. 243
May, 1939
Purdue University Agricultural Experiment Station Lafayette, Indiana
BEDFORD EXPERIMENT FIELD
(Moses Fell Annex)	
Conducted by Department of Agronomy
A. T. Wiancko, Chief G. P. Walker, Associate in Soils H. G. Hall, Farm Superintendent	
REPORT OF PROGRESS, 1916-1938
How to Treat This Kind of Land
The Bedford silt loam soil, of which this field is an excellent sample, should be uniformly tile drained with tile lines about 2% to 3 rods apart and 30 inches deep.
This land is extremely deficient in available phosphorus and crops show a remarkable response to liberal applications of phosphate fertilizers when the cropping system includes legumes.
Medium applications of 2 to 3 tons of limestone per acre are essential to regular success of clovers or other biennial legumes.
The cropping system should include mixed seedings of clover, alfalfa, and lespedeza with a thin seeding of timothy for best results.
The produce should be fed on the farm and the manure conserved and applied to the land.
Wheat should receive from 200 to 300 pounds per acre of a good complete fertilizer, such as 2-12-6 in the fall and either a light topdressing of manure in winter or soluble nitrogen fertilizer as a topdressing in April.
Corn should receive 125 pounds of 0-14-6 fertilizer in the row.
The Bedford Experiment Field is located on the Moses Fell Annex farm which was received from Hon. Moses F. Dunn and Antoinette Fell by the Purdue University Agricultural Experiment Station in 1914 to be used for experimental and demonstration purposes for the benefit of the agriculture of Southern Indiana.
General Soil Fertility Test
The field was laid out and tile drained in the spring of 1917. The original rotation of corn, wheat, clover and timothy was changed in 1943 to corn, soybeans, wheat and mixed legume hay, considered a more suitable rotation on this kind of land. All crops are removed except on plots 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11, where only the ear corn, wheat gram, soybeans grain and clover hay are removed, leaving all the roughage, except the clover hay, on the land in lieu of manure.