Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1916-01-14

Where wheat follows wheat with
an intervening summer .fallow, it
is suggested, therefore, that imm edi-
ately after harvest farmers go over
their fields with corrugated rollers,
harrows, or any contrivance that
tends to crush the smut balls and
mix the crushed smut with the soil.
All the crushed smut will be dead by
spring-unless of course, it finds a
host plant, which it is unapt to do
in implanted stubble.
Spring wheat is less apt to smut
than winter. The foregoing para
graph gives a probable reason for
this: the loosened smut dies during
the winter.
BY carefully cleaning and treating
the cleanest seed he can get the
farmer can in a large measure dis
pose of the seed-born spores Re-
mains then the smut spores conceal
ed inside the wheat kernel, which,
il is hoped, are few Nor is it
known positively, that a wheat kerr
Lei thus contaminated, will germin-
ate. The Washington experiment
station is seeking further light on
this phase of the problem.
To give concrete example Of pro-
cedure, suppose one has in the spring
a piece of stubble ground which is in
tended for summer following. All
the smut broken from the balls the
previous fall are dead. The I'M
broken balls and smut heads are
living. The immediate problem is to
kill these visible spores. To do so,
the farmer must get them out of the
smut balls and in loose moist earth;
or, he may pillow in such way as to
turn them below the seed-bed.
This purpose in mind, it is sug-
gested that early spring blowing or
cultivation be done in the way best
adapted to the crushing or burying
of the smut. The blowing or Guilt
Vation should be done early-not
| late. II done late when the ground
is dry, the spores which do not ger
inmate in dry ground simply lie in
the dry soil in suspended animation.
When the fall rains come, along with
the fall-sowing of grain, the spores
are ready to attack the first wheat
plant that comes within reach.
Dry summerfallowing" is there
fore responsible for smutty wheat, in
many instances. The unbroken smut
balls and heads are permitted to lie
in or on the ground during the moist
early spring time. When the soil is
dry they are simply turned under,
! literally planted, and made ready to
attack the fall sown crop.
If the farmer can not pillow early
in spring, it is we'll for him to at
least harrow and otherwise cultivate
in the spring, taking every means of
getting his smut we'll planted in
loose, m DIST soil, with no host plants
near.
| Where summer fallowed land
which has been subjected to the har-
vest time shower of smut must be
put into fall sown grain, a suggested
expedient is the replowing of the
summer fallow-expensiye, perhaps,
but less costly than the loss from
smut, of five or 10 bushels per acre.
By re-plowing one plants the smut
spores so deeply that in their process
Of termination, they do not reach the
wheat plants.
The Psychologists of the Washing
ton experiment station suggest still
another way of taking advantage of
the smut germ. The latter does not
thrive we'll, apparently, in soil of
mean temperature above 65 degrees.
Wheat, however, terminates quite
readily in most soil of that tempera-
ture. So, if the wheat planter can
SOW his wheat early, say, latterly in
August to the first of September, he
stands good chance of avoiding Sc
we're smut infection. Results OBJ
tanned by the State College upon this
point were quite conclusive.
Since the farmer may be unable
to re-plow his summer fallow, and,
likewise, unable to plant his wheat
in August, third way of outgeneral-
ing the smut enemy is suggested. Re-
call that spring wheat quite appreci-
ably escapes smut, due to the dying,
during the winter, of the separated
smut spores. Late fall planting, as
we'll as spring planting, is appreci-
ably immune from smut Probably
80 per cent of the immunity in late
| planting is due to the termination
and death of spores prior to plant
ing rather than inability of the living
spores to infect in soil of low tenn
perature. In other words, late fall