The Dolores star., 1919-10-10
prepared by the United States Depart
ment of Agriculture

ment of AgricultureD
A firebrand applied to infammable
tinder is no more destructive than are
the smuts which annually ravage and
plllage the grain crops Of the United
States. Last year 25.5OO.0OO bushels Of
wheat. 11OOO0,OOO bushels of oats, and
100000 bushels of barley We're the
tribute paid to smut
There are two smuts which attack
wheat, the loose and covered smut.
Loose smut is most serious in the
southern winter wheat section, which
includes southern Illinois, southern In
diana, southern Ohio. southern Penn
sylvania, southern Missouri, Maryland.
Virginia. Kentucky and Tennessee,
where it causes yearly losses ranging
from , to 20 per cent of the entire
crop. Loose smut shows, conspicuously
when the wheat comes into head. At
this time it reducesfthe grain to dusty
black refuse, consisting largely of
spores of the fungus which are spread
broadcast by the wind and rain. The
dissemination of the disease is fur
thcred by the fact that the blooming
period of the healthy plants and the
shedding of the spores in the diseased
plants are simultaneous. Some of
these spores reach the flowers and in
feet the developing seed. The seed
shows no external evidence of the pres
encc of the smut fungus, but when
planted gives rise to the black heads
in the next crop.
Loose Smut Difficult to Control.
Loose smut is hard to control be-
cause the fungus exists inside the seed,
and hence cannot be reached by ordi-
nary chemicals without killing the
wheat embryo. Fortunately, the dis
ease can be controlled by the hot-wa-
ter treatment, which consists of soak
ing the seed in cold water from to
6 hours and then dipping it in hot wa
ter at a temperature of 132 degrees
Fahrenheit for ten minutes. Subse-
Quently the seed should he spread out
to dry. Great care must be exercised
not to have the water too hot nor to
allow the seed to remain in the water
too long. An advisable system is to
treat four or five bushels of seed and
to sow it in special plot, isolated
from the wheat fields proper in or
der that the seed from the plot may
be used for seeding operations the fol-
lowing year. Farmers who treat their
seed in this manner fortify their fields
against invasion by loose smut.
Bunt or sinking smut ranges at
large over the entire wheat-growing
section and generally causes crop
damage of from l to per cent, al
though frequent individual fields
show losses which range from 20 to 40
and even as high as so and rs per
cent. Bunt is sporadic in distribution,
occurring here and there and every
where in irregular sequence. One
field may be seriously infested while
the neighboring field on the right may
be free from the disease. The disease
shows up a few days before the wheat
is ripe. If one carefully examines
the diseased head at this time he will
note that the glumes are pushed
slightly apart, while the developing
kernel is of dark color. If he crushes
open the kernel, really smut ball,
a mass Of ill-smeling. brownish black
spores is released. In thrashng, these
smut balls are knocked out and more
or less broken apart so that the spores
are scattered over the sound seed On
account of its bad smell, milers dis
count and penaliZe wheat covered with
bunt dust
Formaldehyde Bath Kills Bunt.
Sinking smut or bunt is easily con-
trolied by use of formaldehyde, one
pint or one pound of commercial for
malin being dissolved in 40 gallons
of water. The seed to be treated
should be freed as much as possible
from smut balls and other foreign mat
ter and then should be placed in a
loose gunny sack, filling the sack
about twO-thirds full, and then the
sack should be dipped in the formalin
solution and kept there about ten min
utes. By raising and lowering the
sack the grain will be mixed thorough
ly and brought into complete contact
with the solution. After treatment the
grain must be dried and carefully pro-
tected from further contamination
either in the sack or In the planting
machinery. One pint of commercial
formaldehyde solution dissolved in 40
gallons of water is usually sufficient
for the treatment of 40 bushels of seed
grain.
In the far West and on the Pacific
coast. because of the occurrence of
soil infestatiOn by smut in that re-
gion, the copper-sulphate treatment is
preferable to the formaldehyle method
on controlling bunt. The former
treatment consists in dipping the seed
in solution of one pound OF copper
sulphate dissolved in five gallons of
water. When the seed Is removed