The Ladysmith news. [volume] (Ladysmith, Wis.) 1905-1905, 1905-03-11
BIG SAVING FOR FARMERS.
Saved $4o,0o0,0o0 Through Wisconsin
College of Agriculture.


announced ten years ago that the
simple tests which he was making
would in the next few years result in
sa wing more than $40,000,000 to the
farmers of Wisconsin. the prediction
would have been received with a
smile of incredul1ty.
To increase the crop of single
grain, such as oats, by nearly 20 per
cent. seemed too good TO be true, but
the seemingly impossible is sometimes
brought to pass, and experiments in
the prevention of oat smut, which
have been carried on at the college OF
agriculture, have produced these re-
markable results in saving to the
farmers of the state more than $40,-
100000.
When it is remembered that Wiscon-
sin ranks among the great oat produc-
ing states, and that each year over
$500 900 acres of land are sown with
oats. which produce a crop worth $780,
600, 900 to $30,000,000, the significance
of these results is evident, for investi-
cation shows that before the univer-
sity method of preventing oat smut
was generally adopted, the loss to the
oat crop of Wisconsin generally
equalled Is per cent. This waste OF
nearly one-ffth of the crop meant to
the farmers of the state an annual
loss of 100000 bushels of oats, or
nearly $5,Oo0,0oo.
These experiments affected not only
the oat crop, but also barley raising.
| Wisconsin produces about 15,0OO,O0O
bushels of barley annually, and is thus
one of the great barley states. The
university experiment station found
the annual loss in the barley crop due
to smut amounts to over 100000 bush
els. AS the same preventive can be
used for both the oat and barley crop,
there has been a great saving to the
farmers in the raising Of barley.
One who has worked on a farm
knows that at thrashing time, when
the oat sheaves are being fed into the
cylinder there usually pours out at the
rear of the machine cloud of dust
which makes the work disagreeable.
Few realize that these clouds of dust
are made up in large part OF smut
/ spores which are the seeds of fungus
that grow on the oat plants. These
spores or seeds of the fungus, floating
in the air. lodged in the oat grains as
they come from the spout of the sep
arator and remain there until seeding
time. when the farmer takes his oat
seed to the field for sowing.
The fungus spores, if they still ad-
here to the grains, as they usually
do, go into the ground with the seed,
and there the trouble begins. Once
planted with the seed, the fungus
spores grow from day to day with the
tiny oat plant. Each spore sends out
a minute tube Or projection which
works it's way into the tissues OF the
young oat plant and spreads through
it as it grows. In this way the fungus
| lives only within the stem and leaves
of the growing grain, and the farmer
does not see it as the crop advances
toward maturity.
AS the seed head forms, however,
the fungus growth inside the plant
pushes itself upward and concentrates
itself more or less in the forming
grains. Constantly sucking the sub
stance from these grains Of oats, the
fungus develops it's spores OF oat smut.
Prof. Bolley of the North Dakota ex-
perimantal station, searching for
fungus diseases of plants, experiment.
! ed with formaldehyde as treatment
of oat seed. To his great satisfaction
he found that under certain conditions
seed oats soaked in weak tornado
hyde solution would produce plants
free from the fungus pest.
The University of wisconsin expert
ment station, learning of this work,
saw the Importance OF these expert
ments to the farmers of Wisconsin,
and without delay continued Prof. Boil
ley's tests on large scale. Prof. E. s.
Golf devoted much time and energy to
these experiments, and as the results
were almost uniformly successful, be-
gan at once the dissemination OF in
formation to the Wisconsin farmers.
Prof. R. A. Moore of the department
of agronomy, took charge of the work
and began extensive Investigations,
extending the preventative treatment
| 10 the farmers of the state.
AS a result of the broadcast distri-
button of literature and papers read at
AGRICULTURAL meetings enterprising
farmers everywhere in the state are
now protecting their oats crop from
hte fungus. The results are that more
than two-thirds of the Is per cent loss
of the entire crop has been prevented.
Not satisfied, however, until the blight
is practically exterminated, the col
lege of agriculture is still carrying on
the work, and information is still be-
in disseminated widely among those
who do not yet realize the Importance
! of the formaldehyde preventative--W