East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1905-02-23

The Washington Agricultural col
lege has issued the following import
ant circular on the treatment of
smut in seed wheat:
The disease We commonly call smut
is produced by a small plant which
lives upon the wheat plant and steals
its food from it. The fine black pow
der called smut is made up of a null
titude of small grains each of which
may grow into a smut plant if placed
under the proper conditions. The
smut plant is weed. 1t is a worse
weed for the wheat farmer than is
wild oats, for wild oats grow only in
the soil and there steal the food of
the wheat plant, while the smut plant
grows in the wheat itself and steals
the food after the wheat has extract
ed 1t from the air and SOIL
When grain of wheat is planted
with a live smut grain on it, both of
them soon germinate. The grain OF
wheat produces a wheat plant; the
grain of smut produces a smut plant.
The smut plant produces smaller
colorless grains which at once grow
into other smut plants. Thus from
one original black smut grain several
smut plants may soon come. One of
these plants bores its way through
the skin of the wheat and gets into
the tissues of the stalk.
Here it lives for the rest of its life,
growing up with the stalk and steal
ing food from it. But only when the
Ixtrh eli tS
the smut penetrate. About the time
that the first green leaf unrolls, the
skin gets hard and from then on can
not be penetrated by the smut If
the wheat has not been attacked by
this time it is safe. If, however, the
smut plant has succeeded in entering
the wheat stalk the injury is done
and the wheat will suffer
While growing up with the stalk
during the winter and spring it
checks the growth of the wheat straw
ana makes the smutted plants notice.
ably shorter than the sound ones.
/ When the wheat head forms. the
smut plant sends its branches into it
and takes up the plant food as fast as
/ 1t is deposited in the kernels. There
/ 1t places its own grains and thus pro-
vides for its next years growth.
Methods of Treating for Smut.
1 1t is evident that the way to cure
the smut disease is to attack it while
/ its grains are resting upon the seed
wheat. There are two general meth
DDS of attack: % The treating of the
seed wheat with something that will
retard the growth of the smut and
thus allow the wheat an opportunity
to get ahead of it; CD the treating
of the seed wheat with something
that will kill the smut and thus re-
move all possibility of contamination.
The latter is without doubt the more
effective method.
Why Vitriol Fails.
The chief object of this process
seems to be to coat the seed wheat
with a visible layer of blue vitriol
The farmers are usually satisfied if
after the wheat dries it is blue with
vitriol. The fatal error in the process
lies i'm the fact that but few of the
smut grains are killed and that those
that lie in the crack or groove on one
side of the wheat grain are not touch
ed at all 1t takes more than one
minute or five minutes or 90 minutes
to drive the air bubbles out of this
groove and to wet the smut lying
hidden therein.
The work of one very careful far
mer near Pullman has been followed
this year and his results show the
uncertainty of this process. He used
the greatest care In dissolving his
vtriol, at the rate of one pound of
vtriol to four gallons of water. Az
ter carefully timing every sack of
wheat for full five minutes, he was
docked two cents per bushel on 1000
bushels of his wheat and from Is to
20 per cent of his crop remained I'm
the field as smut.
The Formalin Treatment for Smut.
The formalin treatment is much
superior to either of the vitriol pro-
cesses. It kills the smut instead of
retarding its growth. 1t does not in
jure the seed II properly used. 1t
| costs but little If any more than the
usual vitriol treatment. One farmer
in whitman county during the season
of 1901 had one of the smuttiest
pieces of oats ever seen in this re-
gion. This year he treated with for
malin, and as a result 1t was hard to
find a smutted head in the whole 20
acres. At the same time he sowed a
small row of the seed untreated, and
this was badly smutted. Another
planted so acres of oats untreated
and 110 treated with formalin. The
untreated so acres were smutted The
treated 10 acres were not smutted.
He harvested 10 bushels more to each
acre on the treated 10 acres than he
did on the untreated so acres.
What Formalin is.
Formalin is a 40 per cent solution
of volatile liquid In water. AS OBJ
tanned at the drug store, 1t has the
appearance of water, but has char
acteristic odor. 1t is called by some
manufacturers formaldehyde. or for
malose. Formaldehyde, formalin,
and formalose are all the same thing,
and any one may be used. 1t is poi
sonous in the strong solution in which
~ fs hou0bf and cold hrf ~ 10 nof