Date of Award:

5-1950

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Plants, Soils, and Climate

Department name when degree awarded

Agronomy

Committee Chair(s)

D. C. Tingey

Committee

D. C. Tingey

Abstract

Wheat is the most important cereal crop of the world, and one of the most serious diseases affecting it over much of its range is covered smut or bunt (57). The word "bunt", according to Heald (48), is a contraction of an old English term, "burnt ear", which fittingly describes the ravages of covered smut.

Man's first knowledge of this disease is lost in antiquity, but it was first recorded by early Greek writers (97). Gaines (39), writing in 1928, stated that since 1924 stinking smut had been the most destructive parasite of wheat in America, causing losses of as high as 10 percent in certain states. As an additional cost of the disease, he mentions the expense of washing smutty grain before it can be processed. Flor, Gaines, and Smith (31) listed further losses from bunt due to dockage, the expense of seed treatment, the detrimental effects of bunt infection on plants which do not show typical symptoms of the disease, and reduction in yield. Chester (16) stated that the explosion hazard involved in handling smutty wheat must be counted as a cost of the disease. Price and McCormick (61) and Melhus and Kent (58) have also stressed the danger of fire. Stevens (77) presented data showing that losses from bunt in the United States ranged from nearly 20 percent in 1926 to about 5 percent in 1937.

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