Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1917-04-04
Combating Smut in Oats

The following suggestions have
been sent out by the botany depart
ment of M. A. C.. and are surely
worthy of our careful considerations:
Dat smut is a fungus diseases in
which the whole head becomes a mass
of brownish powder. No grain is
formed. Smut plants are usually
stunted and hence often overlooked in
the field.
This disease is caused by a parasitic
fungus-a small plant which makes
mo food for itself but steals its living
from the oat. The body of the smut
fungus is made up of threads micro
scopic in size which live inside the
oat plant, growing up with it, and
finally producing its own kind Of fruit
where the oat kernel should be pro-
duced. This fruiting mass of the oat
fungus is the brown smutty powder.
1t is made up of countless thousands
of exceedingly minute balls. These
balls are the "seed" of the smut fun
gus. They are called spores.
These seed-like bodies, the spores,
are mature at threshing time. The
air about the machine is sometimes
black with them, and the smut rises
in clouds. They get in to the crevices
of the grain and entangled in the
bristles. When the grain sprouts, the
smut fungus sprouts too and bores in
to the young seedlings. Smut treat
ment kills the spores ("seeds" of smut
fungus) on the grain without hurt
ing the oats. Smutted oats give
smutted plants, disinfected oats give
clean, healthy plants. When the oat
natures, the smut which has bored
into the plant and which has been
keeping pace with its growth, natures
too. The same story is repeated year
after year, at an enormous cost to the
farmers pocketbook.
1t is not too much to say that year
in and year out, smut destroys five to
ten per cent of the Michigan oat crop.
This amounts to nearly million dol
| lars annually. The oat smut's board
bill costs the average farmer with ten
acres of oats $4,000 a year. He pays
more to keep this parasite than he
pays for schools. What the average
farmer loses in one year from oat
smut would pay his share in the tax
that supports the Michigan Agricul-
tural college 800 years. If the agri-
cultural college did nothing else than
tell the farmer the well-known facts
about smut, it's existence would be
justified.
Clean oats of all weed seeds, chaff,
and light grains by means of a fan
ming mill.
Fight oat smut either by the we'll
known sprinkling method or by the
new concentrated formaldehyde treat
ment.
Sprinkling Method
Mix one pint of formaldehyde
with forty gallons water. Clean
a place on the barn floor and
sprinkle with this solution.
Spread the oats in a thin layer
flour inches) and sprinkle with
the dilute solution of the formal
dehyde. A sprinkling pot is
handy. Shovel over and over
until every kernel glistens with
moisture. Add layer after lay
err, sprinkling as before. Two
men can do the work quickly and
easily. When all the grain is
moistened shovel into compact
heap, cover two hours with a
blanket or canvas.
Then spread out to dry.
Don't let the wet grain freeze,
mould, or sprout. 4s
The grain may be planted as soon
as it is dry enough to run through
the drill Make allowance for
the slightly swollen condition.
One pint of formaldehyde will
treat 80 bushels.
The treatment may be modifi-
ed by dipping the grain one-half
to one bushel at time in bar
rel or tub of the dilute solution.
Drain, cover for two hours, dry
and the oats are ready for plant
ing.