Soil Copper Deficiency in County Offaly, Ireland

Abstract

ON a farm where a feeding experiment in connexion with phosphate deficiency in pasture herbage was in progress, a heifer showing extreme emaciation and excessive scouring was brought to my notice. The scour, which was almost continuous, was thin and watery, green to black in colour with numerous small bubbles, and had persisted for a period of more than two months. It started in January while the heifer was fed on old meadow hay of very poor quality grown on peaty soil, moist sugar pulp and a small amount of herbage consumed from a rather bare moory pasture. The soil on the farm, which appears to be comparable with that on which successfully treated similar cases are reported elsewhere^1–3, is composed mainly of peat resting on marl, and is slightly acid in reaction.