Stinking Smut (Bunt) in Wheat and How to Prevent It (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Stinking Smut (Bunt) In Wheat and How to Prevent It Stinking smut is important (1) because it reduces yields, some times very greatly, and (2) because it blackens and Odorizes the grain, making it unsatisfactory for milling until the smut is removed by washing or scouring. This necessitates an additional cost and is reflected in a lower price of wheat to the farmer. A smutted head is a total loss. Experiments3 have shown that the percentage of smutted heads in the field is approximately the same as the actual loss in yield to the farmer. A field with 25 per cent of the heads smutty will show a reduction in yield of about one fourth on account of smut. During the summer of 1930 counts to determine the amount of stinking smut were made in 704 spring-wheat fields in 16 counties in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Montana. The average amount of smut found in all fields was per cent. If this is considered as the aver age for all four States - and probably it is not far from-correct - it represents a reduction in yield of bushels of spring wheat. At 78 cents a bushel this quantity of wheat would be worth about During the period 1917 to 1927 the Bureau of Plant Industry issued annual estimates 4 of the reduction in yield of certain crops from plant diseases. The average annual loss from stinking smut of wheat over that 11-year period was 2 per cent, and the average annual reduction in yield was bushels. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.