The Meridian times. (Meridian, Idaho) 1909-1938, 1919-10-10

A frebrand applied to infiammabIe
finder is no more destructive than are
the smuts which annually ravage and
pillage the grain crops Of the United
States. Last year $500, 900 bushels Of
wheat. 100000 bushels Of oats, and
100000 bushels of barley were 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
lis time it reduces the 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
thered 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 ard in
feet the developing seed. The seed
shows no external evidence of the pres
ence of the smut fungus, but when
planted gives rise to the black heads
in the next crop.
Loose Smut Difficult to Control.
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 s to
hours and then dipping it in hot wa
| ter at a temperature OF 132 degrees
| Fahrenheit for ten minutes. Subse-
| quentIy the seed should be 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 a 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-
1 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 a crop
! damage of from / to per cent. al
! though frequent individual fields
show losses which range from 20 to 40
| and even as high as 30 and IS per
cent. Blunt is sporadic in distribution.
| occurring here and there and every
! where in irregular sequence. One
| field may be seriously infested while
1 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 brushes
open the kernel, really smut ball
mass OF ill-smelling, brownish black
spores is released. In thrashing, 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, millers dis
count and penalize wheat covered with
hunt dust
FormaIdehyde Bath Kills Bunt.
Sinking smut or bunt is easily con-
trolled by use of formaldehyde, one
pint or one pound of commercial for
malin being dissolved in 80 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 q
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
" 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 4
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 O
soil infestation by smut in that re
Kion, the copper-sulphate treatment is
preferable TO the formaldehyie method
on controlling bunt. The former
treatment consists in dipping the seed
IN solution of one pound of copper
! sulphate dissolved in five gallons o
water. When the seed is removed