Take-all and W hit e -heads in Wheat. 421 



Treatment Recommended. 



'Vo the farmer wlio sees liis best wlieat-crups going oft' iu patches^ 

 and his yiekls considerably diminished by this disease, the main 

 question at issue is, how to prevent it altogether, or at least to lessen 

 the loss caused by it, and he invariably asks " Is there any cure or 

 preventative for this disease?" As to cure, it is evident from the 

 nature of the case, that it cannot be attempted. When the feeding- 

 roots of the plant have been attacked by the fungus, which works, so 

 to speak, in the dark, the disease only becomes manifest through the 

 sickly appearance of the plants, when the fungus has gained such a 

 firm hold, that the plant soon droops and dies, then it is too late to 

 intervene. But as regards prevention, there are various means whereby 

 the fungus may either be destroyed, or starved, or circumvented, and 

 these measures are based upon a knowledge of the nature of the 

 enemy we have to fight and the tactics it adopts to secure its ends. 



As we have seen, the fungus is in the soil, and not in the seed, and 

 therefore in order to destroy it there, special measures may be 

 recommended. 



In France, various manures have been tried to check this fungus, 

 and the best results were obtained from a dressing of Thomas phos- 

 phate. During this season, the disease occurred in well-manured 

 paddocks, but there may be some ingredient more destructive than 

 others, and various combinations will be experimented with. 



The Agricultural Chemist, Dr. Howell, writing under date 2ord 

 November, 1903, says : — " Two years ago when take-all and white- 

 heads were rather bad in the Xorth, I inspected several fields very 

 closely, and found the trouble as bad in the unmanured as the manured 

 plots. I saw no reason for believing that the Thomas phosphate then 

 showed any preventive effect. However, I do not wish to throw any 

 doubt upon the truth of the results of French investigations. These 

 mny possibly find confirmation in future experiments in Victoria. 

 A very much smaller increased yield, however, produced by Thomas 

 phosphate in the North than by superphosphate, is a point which will 

 require consideration, whatever the effect may be in the direction 

 referred to by you." The soil might also be treated with various 

 solutions before sowing, to act as fungicides, but the application of 

 sulphate of copper, sulphate of iron, and sulphuric acid, was not a 

 success in France. However, Mr. Farrer, Wheat Experimentalist, 

 speaks favourably of sulphate of iron, for he states in the Agricultural 

 Gazette, of New South Wales, for 1900, at page 716, that he gave 

 his land that had patches of take-all, a dressing of about 70 lbs. to 

 the acre in the early spring, and since then, he has not been troubled 

 with it. He considers, however, that 1 cwt. per acre would not be 

 too much for a dressing. 



Burning the stubble should also tend to check the fungus, and 

 although collecting the stubble and burning it seemed to have no 

 practical result in France, the farmers here are almost unanimous that 

 if they get a good burn over the patches, take-all does not reappear 



