PLATE 7. 



BALL MUSTARD, Neslia paniculata (L.) Desv. 



Otter English names : Yellow-weed, Neslia. 

 Other Latin name : Myagrum paniculatum, L. 



(Noxious: Dom., N.W.) 



Introduced into the West about the same time as Tumbling Mustard, 

 Hare's-ear Mustard and Cow Cockle. A tall slender, annual or winter annual, 

 which has spread through the grain growing districts on the prairies with 

 great rapidity, until it is now found as a bad pest of the grain grower from 

 Manitoba to the Pacific. Stems erect, very slender; strong plants throwing 

 out a few long branches. Whole plant yellowish green and covered with 

 small appressed star-shaped hairs. Lower leaves lance-shaped, narrowed at 

 the base; stem leaves arrow-shaped, clasping the stem at the base, blunt- 

 pointed. Flowers small, J of an inch, orange-yellow; racemes very 

 long, with the small, round, one-seeded, shot-like pods [Plate 55, fig. 46 

 natural size and enlarged 4 times] standing out from them in all directions 

 on slender footstalks about half an inch in length. The pods do not open to 

 discharge the seed, but dry up and produce a small, roundish, brown, 

 wrinkled object, like a small piece of dry earth, about T ^- of an inch across. 

 The contained seed is yellow. 



Time of Flowering : June to August ; seed ripe July to September. 

 Propagation : By seed only. 



Occurrence : In grain fields all through the West. In the East along 

 railways and wherever western grain is carried. Ball Mustard is trouble- 

 some as a weed only in the West. 



Injury : This weed has spread chiefly from the inconspicuous nature of 

 the seed. It is frequently overlooked in seed grain, owing to the resemblance 

 of the persistent wrinkled pod to a small particle of earth. 



Remedy : Early summer-fallowing and the disking of stubbles in fall 

 and spring are perhaps the best way to hold it in check. All seed grain 

 should be very carefully cleaned before sowing. In very badly infested fields 

 the stubble should be harrowed as soon as the crop is harvested to start a crop 

 of seedlings, which should be disked down late in autumn. The next spring 

 the land may again be cultivated and sown late to early barley, which should 

 be cut on the green side, or oats may be sown for green feed. The edges of 

 fields should be mown before the seeds of the Ball Mustard are ripe, and the 

 hay fed at once or burnt. This and all the mustards make good green feed. 



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